The Cruel Sea
by Dizzo
Summary: Just exactly how many things can go wrong on one hunt? Oooh, lots - when you're a Winchester. A bit of humour/angst/hurt-comfort … how many genres can I throw into one story? Usual rules apply; no spoilers, T rating for the odd naughty word and no particular resemblance to canon.
1. Chapter 1

THE CRUEL SEA

Just exactly how many things can go wrong on one hunt? Oooh, lots - when you're a Winchester.

A bit of humour/angst/hurt-comfort … how many genres can I throw into one story?

Usual rules apply; no spoilers, T rating for the odd naughty word and no particular resemblance to canon.

Disclaimer: I don't own them and for that they should be eternally grateful.

xxxxx

Ancient bedsprings creaked and groaned as Sam shifted wearily. Lying flat on his back, arms folded behind his leaden head, he stared through gritty, tired eyes at the moonlit cobwebs that festooned their sparse room's grubby ceiling, and reflected glumly on their last hunt which hadn't exactly been an unqualified success.

The words 'abject humiliation' sprung to his mind. They seemed to sit quite comfortably alongside 'total fiasco' and 'catalogue of dumbass blunders'.

Glancing across the darkened room, his eyes latched onto his sleeping brother. Sam knew that Dean had suffered from the trials of the last few days even worse than he had; two hospital stays within a week was an impressive scorecard even for Dean, and Sam's ears were still stinging from the many furious chewings they had suffered. But how many times can a man say he's sorry?

Ultimately, he knew that whatever heartfelt justifications and apologies he made, Dean's unique brand of logic had already decided the whole debacle was Sam's fault. Although Sam was happy to admit the hunt had been his idea, Dean wasn't entirely blameless in the comedy of errors it had descended into. He knew, however, that Dean wouldn't let a little fact like that get in the way of holding it against Sam for the rest of his life, and most likely beyond.

On their return to the room, Dean, clearly not sharing Sam's guilt-ridden insomnia, had stumbled out of his jeans and almost instantly fallen into an exhausted, grumpy sleep. Currently sprawled squid-like across the bed, he lay flat on his belly under a crumpled merangue of tangled quilt, bare feet hanging limply off the end of the sagging mattress, muffled snores melting into a yellowing pillow which he hugged like a long-lost friend.

xxxxx

Sam's aching body felt like he had been wrung out, like a damp old dishrag that had scrubbed one pot too many.

He swallowed back a lingering queasiness as his stomach lurched miserably, the harsh motion reigniting a burning in his dry, abused throat, and grimaced; his mouth tasted like a goddamn camel's armpit. Okay, he didn't actually have personal experience of what a camel's armpit tasted like, nor did he have any wish to gain such experience, but under the circumstances, he felt it was a suitably descriptive metaphor. Or was it a simile? Or was … oh, damn it to hell, he didn't care what it was, he just wanted to sleep before his eyes bled out, then hit the road in the morning and leave this godforsaken patch of nowhere a long way behind them.

Dean shifted in his sleep unconsciously ditching the quilt as he lavishly scratched his ass, then let loose an impressively loud snort before mushing his violently sunburned face back into the pillow, and snuffling a long, wet groan into it.

xxxxx

Giving into the lingering ache of a dehydrated body, Sam blinked back stinging exhaustion as his mind dredged up recent events over and over again. He wanted to blush furiously at the thought but his face was so heavily sunburnt, it wouldn't have been worth the effort.

Even so, he wouldn't have minded if they'd actually achieved something through all their trials and tribulations, but no; the whole hunt had been a complete bust.

They had discovered nothing - apart from a lot of new swear-words when Bobby came to collect them from the hospital and decant them back at the motel.

And after everything, all they had to show for their efforts was a depressing catalogue of self-inflicted incapacity including cuts, bruises, sunburn, headaches, congested lungs, streaming noses, dehydration, loose bowels and a mysterious sting which wouldn't stop itching; quite how Dean had managed to get himself stung _there _and by what, Sam didn't even want to consider.

His train of thought was abruptly derailed as Dean let loose a spectacular sneeze deep into his pillow and his whole bed frame rattled. His unconscious limbs continued their squid-like wanderings across the mattress as he rolled inelegantly over onto his side, letting out a rattly grunt and pausing to wipe his nose on his wrist as he rummaged inside his boxers to enthusiastically scratch his butt on the way over.

xxxxx

It was a long time coming, but finally, Sam could feel sleep drifting over him, he sighed with relief as he felt himself begin to relax. Thoughts of their recent ordeal began to fade along with his consciousness.

Burrowing his shoulders deep into his pillow, he allowed himself sink into delicious oblivion. As his mind faded to black, one last conscious thought played across it.

He was never going anywhere near the goddamn ocean ever again.

xxxxx

tbc.

_a/n - I know this is a very short chapter. Just a little bitty scene setter before I get in with the real torture and humiliation ... uh, I mean action._


	2. Chapter 2

THE CRUEL SEA

Chapter 2

xxxxx

_Big Bart's 'All You Can Eat' Diner, Maple Springs_

xxxxx

"… sigh ..."

Sam glanced upwards from the sports pages of a crumpled copy of the Maple County News, and grimaced as Dean didn't even bother trying to stifle a lavish yawn that stretched across his face, proudly displaying a mass of chewed burger.

Lifting his newspaper once again, Sam took a sip of mango smoothie and returned to his reading.

"Bored."

Sam's eyes flicked upwards again, glaring darkly over the top of the newspaper.

"Bored, bored, bored."

Dean slumped in his chair, staring at the ceiling and making a point of not looking at his brother.

Jaw clenching in frustration, Sam realised he had read the same line five times.

"Bored … bored … boredy … boredy … Boredsville, Arizona."

Swearing quietly, Sam found himself reading the same line yet again; it wasn't even an interesting line.

"… sigh ..."

Sam cracked.

"Okay dude, out with it," he snapped, slamming the newspaper on the table and scattering Dean's few remaining fries across the plastic gingham tablecloth; "you've been in a major funk all week. What the hell's wrong with you?"

Dean looked up wide-eyed over the greasy napkin that he was scrubbing across his lips, as if Sam's outburst was unexpected.

"Woah, easy sasquatch; who rattled your cage?"

"You did," snapped Sam; "now spill before I throttle you; what's wrong?"

Dean's raised eyebrow had 'I'd like to see you try, princess' written all over it.

"I'm bored," he eventually replied calmly.

"Yeah, I got that bit;" Sam snorted, "just … just read a book or something."

Dean rolled his eyes. "I don't mean here, like, right this instant; I mean generally," he grumbled; "I'm bored with our life!"

Sam choked briefly on his smoothie. "Dude, we dice with death on a daily basis; how can you be bored?"

Dean let out a long exasperated sigh which suggested he was attempting to make himself understood to a cretin. "No Sam, what we do on a daily basis is find some stupid friggin' douchebag spirit, wreck our backs digging up its skeevy old bones, burn the bones, gank the spirit, return to some putrescent diner like this for food that any decent person wouldn't feed a dog, then find some flea pit motel with all the salubrious charm of an epidemic and crash there until the next day when we get up and do it all over again."

Stunned into silence, partly by Dean's outburst and partly from hearing his brother use words like 'putrescent' and 'salubrious', Sam studied Dean's face. It stared back at him, brimming with earnest petulance and three words flashed through his mind.

Mid. Life. Crisis.

xxxxx

Having finished their meal, the brothers retired to their motel which, in line with Dean's tirade, bore all the hallmarks of a giant cholera culture.

"So, what do you suggest then?" Sam asked.

Dean shrugged as he pulled a small pack of peanut M&M's from his duffle; "dunno."

"Real helpful dude," Sam snorted.

Dean huffed and poured the pack's entire contents into his mouth.

"Feel like a vacation?"

"Hmmmffnnd-mhhhp"

Sam winced; "and without the peanuts …?"

Dean swallowed deeply, and Sam paused, watching his brother's throat convulse as 50 grams of M&M's headed south.

"Can't afford it," Dean grunted, screwing up the empty pack and tossing it in the general direction of the trashcan.

"What about we take up some honest work for a while, and actually have some money to spend," Sam suggested; "the garage downtown is advertising for car washers?"

He instantly withered under the weight of Dean's contempt.

xxxxx

A brief silence settled over the room.

"I know," Sam announced suddenly; "why don't we find something really exotic to hunt?"

Dean's head tilted, a quizzical look settled across his face.

"Okay," Sam began; "look, you're bored with just hunting common garden-variety suburban spirits, so lets find something really unusual to hunt."

"Like what?"

"I don't know," Sam shrugged; "something like ... a unicorn for instance."

"Why would you wanna hunt a unicorn?" Dean replied, his voice rising to something approaching a whine; "they're nice. Anything that farts rainbows has gotta be worth preserving in my book."

Sam scraped his fingers through his hair; "I don't want to hunt unicorns, I'm just using them as an example," He replied, pausing for a moment before continuing; "okay, let's say … something like Ogopogo, or a mothman or something really weird that we've never come across before."

Dean's face was suddenly alight with curiosity and Sam could see he was buying into the idea.

"The Loch Ness Monster," Dean grinned; "let's gank Nessie!"

"Slight problem there, man;" Sam replied; "there's only one Nessie and he lives in Scotland. So unless you're gonna swim the Atlantic, then you've gotta …" He made subtle flapping motions with his arms.

"Phht, nah, not Nessie then;" Dean grunted; "he's only some stupid big lizard thing anyway."

Another brief silence settled between them.

"I know;" Sam spoke up hesitantly; "what about a mermaid?"

Dean paused. "Are they the ones that drown sailors when they sing?"

"No," Sam shook his head; "they're sirens."

"Do they eat people, or kill them?"

"Not that I know of."

"So, what do they do then?"

Sam chewed on his lip as he dredged through his extremely-limited-verging-on-non-existent bank of mermaid knowledge.

"I don't know; they just kinda sit on rocks and comb their hair, I guess."

Dean cocked an eyebrow; "and you would wanna hunt a thing like that, why exactly?"

"Because they're hard to find and even harder to catch," Sam replied enthusiastically; "It would be a challenge and an adventure!"

"Sam, you know the rules," Dean sighed; "we don't kill things that don't do any harm."

"Yes, but we don't kill it, see?" Sam grinned, gripping Dean by the shoulders; "we just catch it for the thrill of the chase, and then throw it back. Think of it like a kind of extreme angling!"

Sam could see the wheels in Dean's mind turning as he gave the idea serious consideration. A sparkle of purpose and excitement had returned to his eyes and Sam inwardly congratulated himself.

"Hey Sam," Dean began, his face morphing into a wide grin; "aren't mermaids supposed to be hot?"

Sam deflated; okay, that's not what he was expecting.

"Well, the ones in the Disney movies are, I suppose," he shrugged; "well as hot as you can be when you're basically half a haddock."

"And we don't kill it – er - her," Dean checked once again; "or hurt her."

"Nope, not a scratch," Sam reassured.

"Unless of course, we find out she's a fugly killer monster bitch," Dean added; "then it's open season. Deal?"

"Deal," Sam nodded firmly.

Dean leapt onto his bed and grinned, "right then Florence, get your nose in that laptop and find us a mermaid."

"Hey," Sam snorted angrily; "how come you're the one who's bored and I still end up doing all the work?"

Dean grinned as he drew another pack of M&M's out of his duffel, "savin' my energy for reelin' in our special catch baby bro!"

He tipped the pack's entire contents into his gaping maw and nestled contentedly back against his pillows.

"Jerk!" Sam snapped, and switched on the computer.

xxxxx

tbc

_A/n Big Bart's 'All You Can Eat' Diner and the town of Maple Springs are both figments of my imagination. If there really is a Big Bart's Diner, I'm sure it's much nicer than I've made it sound!_


	3. Chapter 3

THE CRUEL SEA

Chapter 3

Sam's completed his research, but Dean's less than overwhelmed at the outcome!

xxxxx

The tiny coastal town of Ocean Halt clung precariously to a rugged promontory, the way centuries-worth of grey lichen clung to it's ramshackle huddle of stone buildings.

Forever at the mercy of the most savage anger the Atlantic could hurl it's way, the town had never thrived, spread or grown: it simply existed; happy to ignore the outside world except where practicality demanded and equally happy to be ignored.

When it wasn't being assaulted from above and around by the fury of the ocean and the storms wrought by it, the town also suffered threats from below; subsidence from the labyrinth of tunnels and caves that millenia of encroaching seawater had carved through the limestone upon which it stood.

Little could Ocean Halt have known, as a sleek black car rumbled slowly along the pot-holed road into town, that another more localised tempest was heading it's way.

That tempest went by the name of the Winchesters.

xxxxx

"Heck Sam, where is this crap-hole you're sending us?" Dean grumbled, irritably kneading the back of his neck; "talk about the ass-end of beyond!"

Sam rolled his eyes, and continued staring out of the passenger window at the rocky wilderness that unfolded before them.

"You wanted to find a mermaid to hunt, and by the research - that I had to do, I might add," Sam emphasised; "this looks like the most likely place we're going to find one."

Dean muttered under his breath, his eyes scanning the barren moonscape that closed around the Impala as she rocked and rattled along the neglected road. "Why couldn't you have found me a friggin' mermaid somewhere awesome, like Las Vegas?"

"Because mermaids live in the sea and Vegas is in a desert a thousand miles inland, you moron," snapped Sam; "the only mermaid you're gonna find there'll be a dead one half eaten by buzzards."

Dean sighed. It had been a long, tiring drive; ten hours in the car had left the brothers stiff, cranky and just about ready to slaughter each other.

They needed food, a cold beer and, above all, sleep.

xxxxx

Having checked into Ocean Halt's only accommodation, a grim rambling pile which bore an unnerving resemblance to the Bates Motel, the Winchesters were buoyed to find the little town's only watering hole; the Mermaid Tavern.

Despite the fact that it looked like it was constructed five hundred years ago by someone with serious co-ordination issues using only a bucket and spade, the bar and the welcome were warm, the beer was cold and the clam chowder was to die for.

They ate ravenously, and eventually settled back in a companionable silence, sated and content with each others' company, savouring full bellies and full glasses.

xxxxx

"So," Dean finally broke the silence on the back of a softly stifled burp; "you gonna tell me why we've hauled our asses all the way out here to the end of the friggin' Earth."

Sam took a long mouthful of his beer, relishing the icy bite before swallowing; "I already told you, Dean," he replied; "once last night and twice again in the car on the way here."

"Yeah well, I forgot, tell me again."

"You weren't listening you mean!"

He was treated to the patented Dean Winchester eye-roll; "whatever, are you gonna tell me again, or am I gonna keep asking?"

Sam took a deep breath which tailed off into a sigh.

"We are here at the 'end of the friggin' Earth' because of what my research into mermaids showed me," he began; "firstly, mermaids nest in sea caves, and this place is riddled with limestone caves which have been excavated by the sea."

Dean nodded non-committally and took another slug of his beer.

Sam continued; "mermaids are shy, they like quiet, secluded places well away from humans; and I don't know if you've noticed, but this place isn't exactly throbbing with activity."

Dean glanced over his shoulder at the bar's only other patrons, standing in listless silence beside the bar; two stocky, leather-faced men, old beyond their years and smelling faintly of fish. He turned back to Sam.

"You don't say," he remarked quietly.

"But most of all," Sam added; "this stretch of the Atlantic is steeped in mermaid lore, and a lot of it seems to be centred around this town. It's got a long fishing history and there are countless anecdotes of fishermen encountering mermaids, sometimes catching them by mistake."

He was interrupted by a snigger; "hey Sammy, that'd be cool, mermaid chowder - I wonder what that tastes like?"

On the basis that he felt it was best not to encourage Dean, Sam ignored him, ploughing on regardless.

"Some fisherman claim to have been rescued by mermaids when their boats got into trouble in storms, others say they have been threatened by mermaids trying to rescue their fish …"

"I wonder if it's best accompanied by red or white wine?" Dean pondered, clearly lost in his own facetious little world; "I mean, it's meat and fish - kinda surf and turf all in one creature."

Sam glared silently at his brother.

"Dean, if you ask me later on to explain what we're doing here again, I will hurt you."

Dean grinned; "oh, unknot your boxers Samantha, I get it; mermaids like wet, rocky holes in the ground, and this town likes mermaids."

Sam nodded wearily, and kneaded his temples; he could feel a headache coming on.

"The town trades on it's mermaid lore - apart from fish, it's all they have," Sam continued; "their civic emblem is a mermaid."

"An' this is the Mermaid Tavern," Dean piped up enthusiastically.

"Exactly," replied Sam, "so in answer to your question, that's why we're here."

Dean nodded mutely in appreciation; "good work, Sherlock; so what now?"

Sam sat back and briefly basked in the praise, knowing that was as close to gushing thanks as was ever likely to come out of Dean's mouth. "Well," he replied; "I thought first of all, we'll go tomorrow and check out those caves, and see if we can find any evidence of mermaid occupation."

"Caves?"

"Yeah, caves."

"But Sam, I thought this was going to be an adventure on the high seas," moaned Dean, "I don't want the same old crap as we always gotta deal with; I spend my entire life pokin' around in dark, damp holes."

Sam stared at Dean.

"There's really no decent way to answer that, is there?"

Dean huffed sulkily.

"Look," Sam countered with self-preservation firmly in mind - he didn't want to spend a day dragging a bored, unwilling brother around a potentially hazardous cave system; "we'll check out these caves, and if we find any clues or any signs of mermaid life that make us think it's worth going on, we'll charter a boat and then we can go out looking for our lovely ladies."

Dean nodded reluctantly.

"I mean, we wouldn't go blundering into any other hunt without checking out the background first," Sam added, seizing his advantage, "would we?"

Dean drained his beer, and jerked to a quiet hiccup. The tip of his tongue casually explored his lips, seeking out the last lingering taste of his beer.

"Would we?" Sam persisted.

"No!" Dean finally snorted in response, "but I'm warning you Sammy, if I've got to go grubbin' around in friggin' caves, you'd better find me one seriously hot mermaid." His glare darkened as he continued; "if we end up with some gruesome old heifer with a face like a smacked ass, I'm gonna throw you back in with her!"

Sam smiled and relaxed. He finally had Dean on-side.

Kind of.

xxxxx

tbc


	4. Chapter 4

THE CRUEL SEA

Chapter 4

The Winchesters aren't exactly excelling themselves on this hunt.

xxxxx

A colourful oath rang around the damp stone walls as a size eleven workboot splashed heavily into one of the many rock pools peppering the cave's uneven sandy floor, forcing three hermit crabs to scuttle for cover.

Dean pointed his flashlight down, illuminating his left foot which was immersed to the calf.

"Felt like a paddle?" Sam remarked calmly, barely even attempting to hide his snigger.

"Kiss it," snorted Dean, lifting his foot and giving it a perfunctory shake to dislodge a shower of muddy seawater together with the shattered remains of a fourth, particularly unfortunate hermit crab.

"Hate friggin' caves;" Dean grunted, the words followed by a curl of vapour which dissipated across the cave's cool, damp atmosphere.

Dean petulantly kicked an unidentifiable lump of beached flotsam out of his path before reluctantly continuing the brothers' cautious trek through the cave's impenetrable blackness.

xxxxx

They had begun their trek early morning, and Sam's initial cautious plan to 'not go too far into the cave system because these caves are unstable' had been lost in the brothers' enthusiastic curiosity as they set out on their search for mermaid clues.

For several hours they had inched forward through the labyrinth, exploring and groping their way through chambers as great as cathedrals and tunnels so cramped they could barely walk upright, ducking under stalactites and stumbling over stalagmites, their flashlight beams weaving and dancing, illuminating their path through the intense darkness around them.

They now found themselves, by Sam's reckoning, a good half mile under the rocky headland.

Unfortunately, their early enthusiasm for their task had waned dramatically as time went on and they still had nothing to show for their travails except for cold, wet feet and a crushing sense of defeat.

xxxxx

"Oh c'mon, Sam," Dean moaned, cringing at the chafe of the wet sand between his toes which seemed to have become a permanent fixture ever since he set foot inside this godforsaken black hole; "let's give it up man, it's a bust;" he sighed, "it's been over four hours and we haven't found a friggin' thing."

Sam grunted morosely as he tripped over a rock; he hated to admit it, but he'd been thinking the same way, especially since the unfortunate coming together of his forehead and a low hanging rockface about half an hour ago.

Both Winchesters were damp, tired and bored; there had been nothing to find in the caves but - well cave stuff - sand, rocks, seaweed and slimy, scuttly things.

Caves just sucked.

Sam sighed deeply in defeat; Sam Winchester did not do defeat willingly or graciously. "Okay dude," he groaned; "lets turn back."

The journey back through the caves without all their meandering explorations was swifter and more direct than the journey in, and it took only about forty minutes before they were far enough along to just begin seeing a faint grey haze of daylight from the cave's entrance playing on the wall ahead of them.

Suddenly Dean hesitated.

"What's that noise?" he asked.

"Sounds like water …" Sam replied absently, lifting his flashlight in the direction of the sound; "... it's echoing."

The dread hung in the air like the damp mist of threatening sea-spray.

"Sam," Dean spoke without taking his eyes away from the direction of the sound; "when you looked into all this mermaid stuff, did you research the tides?"

Sam's face dropped.

"Shit."

Dean pointed his flashlight down to see foaming water lapping around his feet, and looked back at his brother in horror.

"SHIT!"

They began to stride through the encroaching torrent, splashing clumsily through the gushing water as it rose terrifyingly quickly around them; ankle deep … shin deep … by the time they both ground to a halt against the onslaught, the water was lapping around their thighs.

"It's no good," panted Dean, "we can't fight against this current, especially with it getting deeper."

Flashlights were urgently put to work, as the brothers examined their surroundings. They could just make out that they were in a high chamber, the walls worn smooth by centuries of tidal surges, and more ominously, stained with a slick dark green coating of algae.

Sam's heart began to pound. How could he have been so stupid? He had been so preoccupied with thinking about the crumbling caves not crashing down on top of them; he hadn't even given the tide a second thought.

Damn Dean and his goddamn mid-life-crisis!

xxxxx

Suddenly he was jolted out of his thoughts by Dean's voice.

"THERE!"

Sam felt himself being pushed forward; "up there …"

Dean's flashlight was pointing to a sloping shingle bank leading up towards the roof of the cave.

"We can climb up there, hopefully get above the water," Dean gasped, lumbering through the butt-deep water; "an' if we get out of this alive, I am so gonna paste your ass," he added with an irritable snort. Sam scowled; he couldn't help thinking, on the subject of asses, that if Dean had managed to get off his and donate a bit of brain-power to the hunt, and not left everything to Sam, they may not have gotten into this mess.

They began to scramble up the shifting shingle bank, trying to keep ahead of the water as it rose higher and higher with frightening speed behind them.

They slipped and scrabbled, clawing at the unstable shingle as it crumbled and shifted beneath their feet, sending them sliding two strides backwards and sideways for every one stride forward.

Eventually, Sam made it to the top of the bank to find a small ledge worn into the wall of the cave, gripping it fiercely, he hauled himself up onto it.

Spreading his bodyweight as far as he could across the tiny ledge, he dropped an arm over the edge to Dean, who was right below him, mired in the crumbling shingle.

"Dean, grab my hand," Sam barked, "there's a ledge up here, and there's no algae on it, so I guess the water doesn't go up this high."

Stretching up with a grunt, Dean grabbed Sam's waiting hand; his cold, wet fingers closing around his brother's wrist. He fought to extricate a trapped foot from the unstable bank and reached up toward the ledge with his free arm as he did so, bracing against the wall of the cave to try to pull himself up. There was a sudden yelp of shock from both men as without warning, his hand slipped from the wet, slippery corner of the ledge and he tumbled backwards down the bank into the seething well of rising seawater.

"DEAN," Sam screamed, his ear-splitting cry echoing around the cave.

It was mere seconds, but it could have been a dozen lifetimes, that passed before Dean broke the surface of the foaming, churning water, spluttering and thrashing for the shingle bank again.

The water was high enough now that Sam was able to attempt to reach him without leaving the ledge. Stretching his arm down toward Dean, he gripped his flashlight in his free hand, pointing it down so that Dean could see him.

"C'mon dude, my hand – take my hand!"

Dean groped and flailed blindly through the darkness, grazing Sam's fingertips several times before Sam took the intiative and gripped his wrist, using every ounce of his strength to haul him out of the cold water, and up onto the cramped ledge beside him.

They both lay on the wet, bare rock, panting harshly through the darkness.

"Y'ok Dean?"

"P-peachy."

Sam turned his flashlight onto Dean who recoiled, squinting, from the glare. Dean was dripping wet, gasping and shivering, but otherwise seemingly unharmed.

"Jeez, dude, don't ever do that again …" Sam sighed.

"W-why not … s'f-fun," Dean snorted wetly, coughing up a mouthful of water.

xxxxx

Sam tugged Dean toward him, slapping his back until his harsh, wet coughs subsided and his breathing evened out into something more approaching normal.

Taking stock of their position, Sam was not encouraged. It was pitch-black in the cave, so he hoped desperately the batteries in his flashlight would last given that it was now their only source of illumination after Dean's was lost in his fall. Not only that, but the little ledge that they were perched on was woefully uncomfortable, rock hard (unsurprisingly), haemorrhoid-inducingly cold and wet, and small enough to require its occupants to sit practically on top of each other, clinging together in a gut-clenchingly awkward tangle of limbs.

On the plus side, Sam guessed that cringeworthy closeness would assist admirably with the sharing of body heat that was going to be an unwelcome requirement over the next few hours while they waited out high tide.

The cave was cool and damp, as caves tended to be, but not freezing. Dean, however, was drenched from head to foot. A little pool of seawater was gradually forming around him where he sat slumped; partially against Sam's shoulder, and partially in his lap.

With a sense of some relief, Sam knew air, at least, wasn't going to be an problem; they weren't that far from the entrance to the cave, he could also feel a draft on his neck which suggested there was some kind of fissure or crack somewhere beside him which meant some air was filtering through to them. It also seemed that finally the water had reached it's high level; the deafening rush of the rising tide had softened to a rhythmic lapping melody. It seemed to have levelled some twelve inches below the lip of the ledge on which they were trapped.

Trapped …

Sam made a furious mental note to take himself round the back of the motel and punch his own lights out if … when they got out of this alive.

xxxxx

"C-cold."

Sam had no idea how long it had been before Dean first spoke up, and given that his brother was shivering violently, the announcement was no newsflash.

"I know bro'," Sam sighed, "we need to get this wet stuff off you."

Pulling Dean's soaked overshirt and wet, clingy T-shirt off in the dark, in such a confined space, was an exercise in contortionism that neither brother would ever want to repeat; Sam couldn't believe how long it took his nose to stop bleeding. He briefly considered getting Dean out of his wet jeans as well, but he decided against it figuring that any punch on the nose resulting from that sort of suggestion probably wouldn't be accidental like the last one was.

Besides, Sam knew it was important that he kept Dean's 'core body' warm, primarily his heart. There was nothing in the first aid guide to preventing hypothermia that said it was particularly important to keep someone's ass warm.

Squirming out of his jacket, a not-inconsiderable feat for a man his size in such a confined position, he pulled Dean in close, and wrapped him tightly in the massive garment, patting his ice-cold skin dry with it as he did so, and smiling at Dean's mumbled thanks.

xxxxx

There was a wet squelch as Dean shifted uncomfortably in the little pool of seawater that had collected around him.

"Gonn' g-get trench ass sit-t-ting here."

Sam huffed a mirthless laugh; "well, don't expect me to kiss it better."

Dean shifted again, closer to Sam, planting his elbow somewhere Sam would really rather it hadn't been planted.

"H-how the hell'd I let you talk m-me into 'splorin' friggin' caves?"

"You were bored, dude," Sam replied through clenched teeth, trying to squirm out from under Dean's elbow, "unfulfilled and pissed about getting old."

"Yeah, well that don' look like it's gonna be a problem now," Dean snorted, wincing as his soaked boxers clung and threaded their way up into places they had no business threading.

"Crap," Sam retorted, "we're gonna get out of this fix, Y'hear me?"

Dean huffed sourly, succumbing to a violent shiver as Sam pulled him in closer, tucking the coat around him even tighter, an exercise that had the gratifying effect of moving Dean's ridiculously pointy elbow to less receptive parts of the world.

xxxxx

Sam shuffled back against the wall of the cave to try to make some more space for Dean, and gave a yelp as something sharp beneath him jabbed into his buttock.

He grimaced, rocking forwards, all the while gripping hard onto Dean to stop him tumbling off the ledge again and fumbled blindly underneath his ass to try to remove the source of his discomfort.

As he pulled it out from under him, he studied it under the beam of his flashlight and his heart lurched.

It was a small dainty comb, exquisitely carved out of an oyster shell.

"Holy …" he nudged Dean, "hey Dean, look," he showed the beautiful little object to Dean who stared blankly through the light's beam at it, his brow furrowing in concentration.

"c-comb?"

"Yeah Dean, don't you see - this is what we're looking for - mermaid stuff."

Dean managed a moderately interested huff.

Sam scanned the ledge with his flashlight, peering over the top of Dean's damp head to look behind his shoulder, and his eye caught something else; several other things …

Over the next couple of hours of the brothers incarceration, Sam entertained himself by exploring the little treasure trove he had happened upon, using it not only for his own amusement but as a way to try to keep Dean alert.

A tiny pearl mirror, a pretty circlet of shells and most fascinating of all, a flute fashioned of coral.

He guessed he was reaching the point at which Dean was beginning to tire of his enthusiastic blathering judging by what he suggested Sam do with the flute.

Sideways.

Sam gathered up their booty and carefully loaded it into the pockets of the jacket wrapped around Dean's body. he couldn't wait to check it out when they were back in the safety and comfort of a well-lit motel room.

In the meantime, Sam simply sat clutching Dean's damp form and pondered bleakly through the darkness on how to spend the next few hours until the tide receded.

"Wanna sing?" He asked brightly.

"W-wanna die?"

That'll be a 'no' then.

xxxxx

Across the chamber a shimmering auburn head broke the surface of the water and two midnight blue eyes regarded the trapped hunters.

Those were her belongings, and those men were going to take them.

That was not a nice thing to do.

What to do? To harm another being was not in the nature of the peaceful merpeople, but stealing is a bad thing; even the men of the dry world knew that.

They had stolen her nice things, and that should not go unpunished.

She silently dipped down below the inky surface of the water.

xxxxx

tbc


	5. Chapter 5

THE CRUEL SEA

Chapter 5

It's amazing what you find on the beach sometimes ...

xxxxx

Six year old Timmy Johnstone (he preferred to remind people he was ALMOST seven) clutched his father's hand as they made their way carefully down the damp stone steps to the beach.

Armed with a brand new net and a red bucket, Timmy was a little boy on a very important mission; to collect lots of beach stuff for his school project.

Timmy's new teacher, Miss Harper, had set her class a task for show and tell; collect five things from the beach and then find out two facts about each of them to tell the rest of the class.

And Timmy had decided that as this was his first project for Miss Harper, he was going to make a really good impression. He was going to get an A, and he was going to get a gold star. Nothing else would do.

Because Timmy had a secret. A really big, important secret; he liked his new teacher, he liked her a lot. He felt his cheeks heat up as he thought of her. She had long, chocolate coloured hair, and she smelled of flowers, and best of all she wore long, pretty skirts with patterns on, the way a girl should.

When Timmy was old enough, say about eleven or so, he was going to ask Miss Harper to marry him.

But for now, he had more immediate concerns on his mind; rocks, shells, seaweed, maybe even a starfish. He might even find a real live crab with pincers and everything. That would be the coolest thing ever.

Dad had said the best time to come down to the beach was right after the tide had gone out while the rock pools were all still full of seawater, and Dad had to be right because he knew everything there was to know about the little Town of Ocean Halt, given that he was the Town's Deputy Sheriff.

That was another thing Timmy was going to do when he was old enough, right after he had married Miss Harper, he was going to become the Deputy-Deputy Sheriff of Ocean Halt, and then Ocean Halt would be the safest most law-abiding town in the whole wide world.

Timmy pulled his hand free of his father's firm grip and ran over to a large rock pool near the entrance of the cave. His father followed him, smiling broadly to watch his son suddenly and mysteriously so enthusiastic about schoolwork.

Dropping to his knees in the damp sand, Timmy expected to see a fascinating wealth of the ocean's discarded treasures.

What he didn't expect to see were the two figures that staggered slowly and stiffly out of the cave's dark maw. Their unfocussed eyes stared at him through gaunt, grime-stained faces which were bloodlessly haggard through discomfort and lack of sleep. Leaning heavily against each other, they shivered and slowly limped rubber-legged out onto the beach toward Timmy, blinking tearily into the hazy morning daylight.

Timmy knew it was rude to stare, his mama told him all the time; but sometimes, well, sometimes it just had to be done …

xxxxx

The apple green walls of the outpatients' room at Ocean Halt Health Centre, looked down upon the Winchesters who sat slumped in a silent daze on two matching gurneys, wrapped only in hospital gowns and heated blankets, shakily sipping hot drinks.

Sam cringed at the bitter tang of the vending machine issue coffee, and sighed as Dean squirmed miserably under his blanket.

"You should see the state of my friggin' back," he grumbled, voice still hoarse and raw from the cold and damp.

"I've seen it," Sam replied; "you must have grazed it when you fell down that shingle bank."

Dean huffed sourly; "still don' see why I had to have a tetanus shot; my freakin' arm's gone numb. What if it goes septic and falls off?"

Sam rolled his eyes; what kind of a man is more traumatised by a tetanus shot than by a night spent in freezing darkness, inches away from drowning?

"Didn't you listen to a word the Doctor said?"

Dean sighed; it came out as a harsh wheeze. "Well yeah I did, but he kind of faded out after a while."

Sam shook his head in exasperation; "how come it's your body, and I know more about what's happened to it than you do?" He knew he was being ignored, and so manfully continued regardless; "you had to have a tetanus because of the seawater contamination on the open wounds on your back."

Dean took a sip of the hospital issue coffee; "ugh, talk about contamination; the friggin' seawater tasted better than that!"

He stifled a hiccup as his stomach gurgled in protest at the silt-laden brine he'd somehow managed to imbibe during his tumble.

"Friggin' mermaids suck," he snorted, making a point of rubbing his arm again; "they can keep their stupid combs and their flutes and their goddamn sea, I've had it with the fishy-assed douchebags."

"C'mon," Sam replied; "this is us you're talking about. We don't give up just because of one setback."

"Setback?" Dean snorted; "damnit Sam, if that's just a setback I'd hate to hear your definition of disaster." He continued, warming to his theme; "we've just been stuck freezing our asses off in a black hole overnight, I've been almost drowned, my back's been skinned and then I've just had some freakin' lunatic harpoon me in the arm."

"Well," Sam began cautiously; "it could have been worse."

"Could have? … worse? … you should kiss my ass," Dean snapped; "if it wasn't for the gallons of freakin' ocean I swallowed in that goddamn cave, we'd have friggin' drowned," he scowled; "my fish-eaten remains would be washing up on a beach in Portugal this time next week."

Sam knew a 'give it up Sam, it's not worth the effort' moment when he saw one. This was such a moment.

A silence fell between the Winchesters as they sat, stewing moodily and sipped their foul coffee.

xxxxx

Eventually, it was Sam who broke the silence.

"We sure gave that poor little kid a shock huh?"

Dean shrugged, "at least it'll give him something interesting to write in his project; that poor freakin' teacher'll be a raving nutball after sitting and listening to a classfull of six year olds talking about seaweed."

Sam laughed silently, and reflected briefly he'd never been so glad he wasn't a teacher.

"It's just a good job his dad was there to drive us to the hospital," Dean continued; "although I'm not sure he bought your story about us being achaeologists."

Sam frowned; "he was buying it fine until you started blatherin' on about the lost city of Atlantis."

Dean shrugged listlessly.

"Don't matter 'cause as soon as they let us out of here, We're blowin' this dead-end joint, and getting back to some good old fashioned boring ghost hunts. In dry places!" Dean emphasised the last phrase as if it were non-negotiable.

Sam shot Dean a sideways glance; "ah well, it might be worth sticking around here for a while, dude."

If Dean picked up the persuasive note in Sam's voice, he didn't let on; "give me one freakin' reason why we need to stay in this creepy one-horse burg," Dean grimaced, rubbing his arm and his stomach in turn; "in fact, come to think of it, I haven't even seen a friggin horse, one or otherwise, here!"

Sam took a deep breath; "well, see, thing is Dean; while I was researching this hunt, I got us a boat."

Dean actually stopped rubbing his various body parts as he turned to stare at Sam.

"A boat?"

"Well yeah," replied Sam; "how else did you think we were gonna catch a mermaid? The Impala doesn't float you know."

Dean's eyes narrowed. "Stow the smart comments, bitch, otherwise we're gonna be finding out whether you float."

His face registered confusion; "how the hell have you managed to get a boat?"

"Well, I started out by emailing a few charter companies and said we wanted to go deep sea fishing," Sam began; "but they all wanted to send a captain out on the boat with us; kind of insurance and health and safety rules and stuff like that I guess."

"How inconsiderate," Dean responded drily; "makes it kinda hard to explain that you're deep sea fishing for mermaids."

"Well yeah," Sam agreed.

"So in the end," Sam's eyes dropped to his lap as he hesitated briefly; "I, um, well, I bought us a boat."

"You bought a BOAT?" Dean's eyes almost dropped out of his face.

"Yeah ... it's not a BIG boat," Sam was quick to qualify his statement.

Dean's mouth moved silently in an appropriately fish-like manner, until the power of coherent speech returned to him; "h-how?"

Sam shrugged; "fake loan."

"Fake loan?" Sam noted that Dean looked moderately impressed; baby brother was learning at last!

"Where is it, what's it like?" Dean asked, enthusiasm gathering in his voice.

"It's a little motorboat, few years old, an' it's down at the harbour apparently."

Dean pulled the blanket tighter around him and stifled a burp; ugh, I think I swallowed a starfish or something - that definitely tasted of crustacean."

Sam's nose wrinkled in disgust; thanks Dean, that was Sam's love of seafood diminished for the foreseeable future. "So what you reckon dude, we rest up for today then go and check out the boat tomorrow?"

Shifting uncomfortably, Dean gripped his stomach; he'd just known all night that all that grubby seawater was going to make its presence felt sometime.

"Whatever dude," he grunted between clenched teeth, hopping down off the gurney; "but I don't think I'm gonna be doing much restin' today."

Sam watched sympathetically as his brother disappeared through the door at speed toward the mens' room.

xxxxx

tbc


	6. Chapter 6

THE CRUEL SEA

Chapter 6

The boys meet their transport.

xxxxx

_Two days later …_

xxxxx

"Are you sure you're okay dude?"

Sam's concerned eyes twitched back and forth through the hazy morning sunlight toward Dean as the brothers strode purposefully along the cobbled quayside.

"I'm fine," snorted Dean; "quit y'fussin'."

Sam hesitated; "well, as long as you're okay; that got pretty serious for a while back there."

Dean rolled his eyes; he would rather have not dwelt on the day and a half he just spent practically locked in the bathroom while the evil seawater purged his digestive system like a gallon of prune juice could only dream of, and left him, whilst recovered, feeling weak and feeble like a limp cabbage.

"I mean," Sam just wasn't going to let it drop; "hell, man; it sounded like the Pearl Harbour in there at times!"

Dean sighed; it had felt like it too. The bracing sea air was just the tonic he craved, and the last thing he needed was Sam going all full-on gigantor nursemaid on his ass, and bundling him back up in some stuffy, rancid room again.

"Dude," he huffed, practically jogging on his weary legs to keep up with Sam's long stride; "I'm fine and dandy; I feel well and completely recovered. So can we please talk about something other than the workings of my freakin' innards."

"Yeah, sorry man," Sam sighed.

"Just as long as you're okay."

Sam never knew how close he came to taking a swan dive over the harbour wall.

xxxxx

They wandered in a companionable silence up and down the harbour looking across the water at the mass of boats which rocked and bobbed rhythmically on the gently lapping ocean. Huge, sleek motor cruisers, sat alongside small, brightly coloured RIBs, little wooden rowboats and elegant, slender yachts, their masts waving and swaying in the breeze like a living forest.

"Hey, It'll be cool if our boat's like one of those," grinned Dean, pointing out a massive luxury cruiser which powered smoothly past them; a glistening, white behemoth, slicing effortlessly through the water like a blade.

Sam grinned; "dude, even with a fake loan, we could never afford one of those; our boat's gonna be a lot more modest than that."

Suddenly Dean barked out a laugh. "Oh well, it could be worse; it could be like that crappy old tub over there."

He pointed out an ancient wooden boat lurking in a distant corner of the harbour; alone, like the kid with no friends, rocking quietly on the restless ocean.

Sam stared briefly at it and bust out laughing; "man, that is one ugly pile of crap; and it's ancient; look at the damn thing, I'm surprised it's even still floating."

Dean roared with laughter, brushing a tear from his cheek; "it's probably so friggin' ugly," he spluttered; "even the sea doesn't want it!"

The dismal little boat was a study in neglect. It clearly hadn't seen a lick of paint for years, and in many places, it's hull which had once been painted red, was weathered down to bare wood. It's flat topped wooden cabin was a popular meeting place for local gulls if the generous layer of guano that adorned it was anything to go by.

Sam's laughter faded into spasmodic giggles as he stared at the forlorn vessel; it's salt-caked portholes stared back at him like soulful eyes.

But it wasn't the portholes he was focussing on. There was something on the side of the hull that had caught his attention. A row of faded black paint smudges, all in a line. Those smudges were (or had once been) letters.

The little boat's name.

It was hard to read, given how much the combined onslaught of the sea and the weather had stripped the boat's paint back to almost nothing, but if he stared hard and squinted a bit, Sam could just make out an 'F', and then an 'L'.

His stomach lurched as he stared down at the paperwork which had been sent to him to confirm his purchase of their boat. It's name was printed across the top of the sheet.

Florence.

Oh crap.

xxxxx

"Uh dude," he interrupted, nudging his chuckling brother in the ribs.

"What?" Dean snorted, mid-snigger.

"Um, that boat," Sam cleared his throat; "the little ugly one that looks like it's about a million years old …"

"Yeah?" Dean replied absently.

"Uh, it's ours," he mumbled in the smallest voice he could manage.

Dean's face fell through a series of animated transformations, from eye-watering hilarity to curiosity, pebble-eyed horror, denial, and finally settling on disbelieving shock.

He stared at Sam, his mouth hanging open in a shocked gape; "you wasted a fake loan on that friggin' thing?" The little boat bobbed jauntily over the wash from a passing cruiser and seemed to nod in response.

Sam's mention of 'a motorboat' when he had first revealed his purchase to Dean had had the older Winchester salivating over something akin to Donald Campbell's Bluebird. This thing was more suited to Donald Duck.

"You said it was a motorboat," Dean stammered.

"Well it is," Sam countered; "it's got an engine."

"What's it powered by? Rubber band?" Dean snorted sulkily.

"Oh c'mon, let's give it a chance," Sam sighed; "I mean, I suppose it does look pretty solid, and it's not like we'll be going out far in it."

Dean was still glaring at the boat as if it had personally insulted him, and didn't look in any way convinced.

"Look," Sam coaxed; "even if we don't see any mermaids dude, it'll be a blast;" he checked Dean's reaction; and wilted when there were no promising inroads. "Just you and me chilling out on the ocean, away from all the usual crap; a few beers, and just the sea breeze and the sunshine for company. It'll be almost like a vacation!"

Dean's eyebrows twitched, as if he were actually considering the idea.

"And the best thing about sailing on this boat," Sam continued; "is that you won't have to look at it!"

There was a moment's silent hesitation before Dean caved in.

"Okay," he grunted; "but only if we're sure everything works." He waved his hand dismissively across at Florence. "I'm gonna service whatever pile of junk passes as an engine on this friggin' tub, and assuming it does have a radio, and not two goddamn tin cans on a bit of copper wire, I'm gonna test it."

"Great," Sam smiled; "while you're doing that, I can stock up on the provisions and the safety equipment, and try to smarten her up a bit."

Dean snorted; "better get it checked for woodworm too."

Sam huffed a hollow laugh.

"Oh yeah," added Dean; "an' I ain't hitting the high seas in a boat with a douchey stupid name like friggin' 'Florence'; we're gonna change it's name to 'Xena' or 'Buffy' or something cool like that."

Sam's eyes widened as he shook his head abruptly; "no, you can't do that dude, it's really bad luck to change a boat's name."

Dean stared at him; "says who?"

"Everyone, man;" Sam replied, "seafarers are real superstitious people and they reckon that changing a boat's name is the most unlucky thing anyone can do."

Dean shook his head in disbelief; "you don't really believe all that crap do you?"

Sam clearly did. "The Marie Celeste," he snapped, gesticulating wildly toward the little boat; "that was originally called The Amazon. It's name was changed and look what happened to it; it was found floating abandoned with all it's crew mysteriously vanished."

"They probably fell overboard laughing at this thing," Dean snorted pointing at Florence; "anyway, that's just one ship - it doesn't prove anything!"

Sam drew himself up to his full height and folded his arms across his chest; "we are NOT changing her name."

Dean threw up his hands in submission; "okay bitch, keep your freakin' boxers on," he sighed, his lip curling into a petulant scowl; "Florence it is."

xxxxx

The following morning dawned bright and refreshingly cool and saw the brothers standing on the newly-painted deck of their new acquisition staring at her engine.

Dean turned to Sam, wiping dirty hands on an oily rag. "I hate to say it," he remarked, swiping a grubby hand across his sweat-dampened brow, leaving a black smear; "that's a good little engine, can't find much wrong with it."

Sam grinned; "how's the radio?"

Dean shrugged, "yeah; good I guess. It's pretty basic, but it works fine."

"Looks like we're all set then, I've plotted our course," Sam smiled; "and stocked up on provisions, got sleeping bags for the cabin, a couple of fishing nets, oh, and lifejackets."

Dean squinted through the sunlight; "glad you cleaned all that seagull shit off the cabin," he remarked.

"I get all the nice jobs," Sam laughed; "so dude, do you want to do the honours?" He gestured toward the newly-serviced engine.

Dean didn't need asking twice. He tugged robustly on the engine's starter cord and it fired up first time with an agricultural grumble, leaving her passengers spluttering colourfully as the air suddenly filled with greasy diesel-laden smoke, which cleared just as quickly as the engine settled into a smooth, comfortable rhythm.

Dean stood and watched the results of his labours with satisfaction, flinching slightly as a tap on the shoulder jolted him out of his musings.

He turned to see a bottle of beer being waved in his face.

"We've got to launch our vessel properly," Sam announced.

"I'm not wastin' this pouring it over the side," Dean snorted; "I know exactly where this is going;" he grinned as he took a long draft on the cool amber liquid.

Sam raised his bottle; "Florence!"

"Florence," Dean echoed; "she's ravin' ugly, but she's ours, God help us."

"I assume you'll want to drive?" Sam gestured toward the wheel.

"Natch," Dean replied, nudging Sam aside. He took the wheel in confident hands and steered the little boat out of her lonely berth like a natural.

xxxxx

They had been at sea for around an hour. Florence bobbed and rocked merrily over the rolling ocean, as she ploughed onwards toward the remote point that Sam had marked on the map.

Knowing that Dean was as happy as a hog in in a waller, standing at the wheel of his new toy, Sam relaxed, sitting on the prow with his long legs hung over the side. He savoured the cool salt breeze on his face, and the comforting pitch and roll of their motion through the water, listening to the the whisper of the ocean around them, and the joyful phut-phut-phut of Florence's engine as she powered through the water, relishing her new lease of life.

He took a long, deep breath of the fresh air around him. This was the life. This was true freedom. The ocean was one place where a man could truly look within himself and find peace and contentment, and delicious, blessed solitude.

The shriek of a passing gull focussed his thoughts momentarily and he smiled. Free as a bird; that's what we are right now.

He pulled his shades down from his forehead to shield his eyes from the brilliantly sparkling reflections which played and danced on the moss-green water around him.

He could totally see why people wrote songs about the ocean.

xxxxx

It was just as he closed his eyes and lost himself once again in the ocean's soothing swell, he heard a voice behind him.

"Sam?"

He turned lazily to look back at Dean, who still stood dutifully at the wheel.

"Yeah?"

There was a moment's hesitation before Dean spoke again.

"I feel sick."

Xxxxx

tbc


	7. Chapter 7

THE CRUEL SEA

Chapter 7

Sea legs; anyone got some? Those boys REALLY need them ...

xxxxx

A silken chestnut head smoothly broke the water, just far enough away not to be seen, and glimmering blue eyes scanned the rippling surface of the ocean, coolly regarding the little red boat that she had been following since it left harbour.

The two men who had taken her things were on that boat, and she had watched them closely; they clearly felt no remorse about their theft from her.

They had talked and laughed together, drinking beer and relaxing as their vessel carried them and their plunder out to sea and on to whoever knew where?

She watched as the tall one sitting at the front of the boat had leapt to his feet in alarm, then the other one had suddenly lurched across the deck and emptied his stomach over the side of the boat into the sea. Her home.

She was liking these men less and less.

xxxxx

"Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"I feel sick."

Three words that hit Sam like a punch to the gut. He scrambled to his feet just in time to see Dean abandon the wheel and stumble, rubber-legged, across the swaying deck before hurling violently over the rails which lined the edges of Florence's deck.

Sam made his way urgently to be beside Dean, and place to a flat palm over his heaving back; partly for comfort and partly in an effort to stop him from toppling overboard.

"It's okay, let it out dude," he muttered mindlessly, as if Dean had any choice in the matter.

"nnnnnuuuurrrrrgghhhhhhh-uuuuugggghhh-aaaaaccckk-aaackk-ack …"

Dean groaned, gasping for breath as he slumped miserably against the rails.

"Did you take your Dramamine?" Sam asked, still rubbing Dean's back in time with the boat's rhythmic rolling pitch.

Dean managed a miniscule shake of the head before another violent lurch forward had Sam grabbing his brother's shoulder harder, to keep him safe on board.

"guuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhh-uurrg …"

"S'okay, Dean, I gotcha, you're okay" Sam repeated the words helplessly; "you're okay Dean, take it easy bro".

Dean fell bonelessly against the rails, panting harshly.

"Why didn't you take them?" Sam asked.

"D-din't think I'd need 'em," Dean croaked breathlessly, swallowing back the lingering nausea, "I don' get car sick, so why shoul' I get sea sick?"

He turned to glance up at Sam, watery eyes blinking out of a face as pale as death. The tiny shift in his equilibrium caused by that slight movement was enough to spark the nausea again, and Sam's grip on his brother's shoulder tightened as he felt Dean's body begin to convulse once again. Dean gripped the rail, heaving desperately until his legs gave way and Sam was left practically holding him upright.

"nnnnnuuuurrrrrgghhhhhhh-uuuuugggghhh - hhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagghh"

Sam knew that it was over, at least temporarily, when Dean went limp in his arms. He was utterly spent, panting hoarsely, each breath sounding like a strained sob.

"Let's turn back," Sam announced sympathetically, "you'll be fine when we get on dry land." He knew Dean would kick his ass into next week for abandoning the hunt on his account, but really; the man looked so sick it was heartbreaking. Plus, he didn't like to admit that, even allowing for the meds he'd taken to avoid such an eventuality, Dean's suffering was starting to make him feel more than a little queasy.

"No," Dean ground out through clenched teeth; "never wussed out of a hunt, ain't gonna start now. Gimme the pills."

"Dean …" Sam began, his brow furrowing in concern.

"Gimme," Dean swallowed back another wave of nausea; " the … freakin' … pills …"

Sam shook his head in exasperation, it was starting to throb.

"At least go and lie down in the cabin while the pills kick in, you might feel a bit better if you're horizontal," Sam pleaded, hoping to be able to talk some sense into the stubborn ass.

"Horizontal always works for me," Dean croaked, even managing a weary smirk.

"Jerk," Sam replied, hooking his arm around Dean's sweat-soaked back, and helping him down the narrow staircase into the cabin.

xxxxx

The term, 'couldn't swing a cat' could quite adequately have been applied to the boat's tiny cabin; a situation which didn't help the two tall, long-limbed bodies that were currently trying to manoeuvre within it. Sam stooped uncomfortably as he passed Dean the box of tablets and a bottle of water, watching as he swallowed cautiously, kneading his fractious midriff. Dean sat motionless and uncharacteristically silent for a while, talking, long, gulping breaths and swallowing convulsively as he tried to calm the rising bile.

Sam cringed; Dean's pallor had shifted from creamily pale to grey, a faint green patina had settled over him and he looked just about as sick as Sam had ever seen him look.

They would turn back. Sam had decided. He would bear the brunt of Dean's ire and bear it gladly; anything was better than seeing him like this. Unaware of Sam's decision, Dean slowly and stiffly eased himself down to lie on the small, narrow cot he had been sitting on, clumsily arranging his legs into the uncomfortably cramped position necessary to fit his long frame into the tiny space, and watched through heavy lidded eyes as Sam placed a bucket on the floor beside him.

The eyes narrowed as he looked up at Sam.

"Appreciate the optimism, thanks."

Sam shrugged apologetically; "sorry dude, I've already had to wade through seagull shit on this hunt, I don't think my stomach can deal with cleaning up your puke as well."

There was a few minutes silence in the cabin as Dean drowsed, willing his seething belly to settle. Sam sat across the cramped space watching him, and pretending not to.

xxxxx

After a few minutes of strained silence, Dean spoke up.

"Sam, is the engine still running, or is that just my freakin' blood-pressure I can hear?"

Sam thought for a moment, "I didn't turn it off, it must be still running."

Dean hauled himself up onto one elbow, "we're still going? Why didn't you cut the engine?"

Sam bristled; "well I'm sorry, dude; I was a bit preoccupied with the fact that you were hurling your guts down the side of the boat, and that I was trying to stop you from following them overboard into the drink."

Dean sighed; "Sammy, what I mean is we're still moving, and there's no-one at the wheel." He took a shuddering breath to steady himself; "which means we have no idea what direction we're travelling in, which means therefore, we no longer know where we are."

Sam's eyes widened in horror along with the realisation of their situation, and he leapt to his feet, charging up the steps onto the deck to cut the engine.

When he returned his face was almost as pale as Dean's; "we've lost sight of land," he muttered in a small voice.

"I checked the compass," he added, scraping a shaking hand through his hair; "I think we were … are … I don't goddamn know … heading east."

"Out to sea," observed Dean, "awesome."

The words had barely left his lips before he lurched sideways, almost tumbling off the cot, and painfully heaved the remaining meagre contents of his abused stomach into the bucket.

It seemed like the longest time before he was able to pull in a deep, shaky breath as he looked up at Sam's devastated face through a haze of tears.

"There goes the Dramamine," he gasped.

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, and swallowed hard. The sour odour of nausea hung heavy in the cabin's confined space and Sam knew he was one deep breath away from puking himself.

xxxxx

He stood up; "right Dean, we're going back. No arguments."

"Don' know where we are," murmured Dean thickly; "don' know where 'back' is."

"We can't be that far off course," Sam reflected; "we only left the wheel unattended for, what, ten minutes?"

He thought for a moment. "And," he added,"we're pointing east, out to sea; you said so yourself, so let's think logically about this, if we turn back round and point west, we'll hit land sooner or later."

He hesitated, staring at Dean, silently asking for his approval.

"Even if we don't land at Ocean Halt, we can find our way back there once we've hit land."

Dean rubbed the back of his neck, and huffed out another shaky breath.

"Smartass," he grunted.

xxxxx

Cutting through the water like a shaft of light, she swam under the keel of the boat, wrinkling her nose at the thick layer of barnacles that pocked it's weathered surface.

Hers was a proud race; she would not soil her soul by hurting these men, she would not lower herself to their level. But she had the ability to make life very uncomfortable for them … very uncomfortable indeed.

A satisfied smile played across her pretty face as she plunged deep into a drifting bed of floating kelp.

xxxxx

Sam headed up the steps; "I'm turning us round," he announced smartly, brooking no argument from his brother; "stay where you are; I'll drive us back."

Dean laboured clumsily into a sitting position, a look of outrage plastered across his pallid features; "d'you know how to drive this thing?"

Sam sighed; "Dean, I'm not an imbecile, it's an engine and a steering wheel; I'm sure I can manage!"

"I'll believe that when I see it," Dean huffed contemptuously; "I'm comin' up."

Sam reached down, and gently pushed Dean back down on the bed; "why don't you stay down here and rest?" He cajoled, "it's not like I'm gonna have a rear-ender with a truck or get stuck in traffic or anything!"

"Don' wanna stay down here," Dean moaned; "it stinks."

Sam had to admit he had no valid argument on that point as he made his wobbly way up the narrow wooden steps onto the gently rocking deck.

He turned and watched in frustrated resignation as Dean followed him, hauling himself wearily up the steps on legs like water, parchment-white face set in a pained grimace of determination.

Dean closed his eyes, leaning heavily against the wooden wall of the cabin, willing the tilt-o-whirl in his belly to give it a rest. He was sick of, well, feeling sick.

And anyway, it was an unwritten rule; little brother did not operate moving machinery, not when the master was around, even when the master was a hopeless pile of jello, as sick as death warmed over.

He opened his eyes again on hearing the engine splutter into life, as Sam yanked on the starter cord. It gave a couple of painful, grinding coughs, then ground into a defeated silence.

Sam glanced across at Dean, a flicker of concern tightening his face.

He pulled the starter again.

Another screeching growl as the engine struggled and whined, before dying again, a metallic odour of burning machinery floated across the deck.

Dean gagged as his nausea began a happy dance around his innards at the acrid smell.

"C'mon you goddamn sonofabitch," growled Sam, putting his entire strength into a third furious attempt at starting the struggling engine.

He was rewarded for his efforts by a loud bang, and a terminal snort of blue smoke.

The brothers recoiled, coughing through the thick, oil-laden smoke that curled around Florence's swaying deck.

Dean blinked up at his shocked brother through teary eyes, and coughed through the drifting haze of smoke.

"This is why I never let you freakin' drive," he spluttered.

xxxxx

tbc


	8. Chapter 8

THE CRUEL SEA

Chapter 8

They're stranded, lost and sick. Oh well, at least things can't get any worse.

Famous last words ...

xxxxx

Sam glared at Dean; "what d'y mean 'never let me drive'?" He snapped irritably. "You're talking as if this is my goddamn fault."

"Well it is," snorted Dean dismissively.

"How is it my fault?" whined Sam; "you're the one who serviced the damn engine, it must be your fault."

"Sam, face it; it's a fact of life," replied Dean calmly; "you're freakin' clueless with machines." He folded his arms belligerently, just daring Sam to retaliate; "letting a ham-fisted dork like you anywhere near complicated moving machinery is just asking for a breakdown … it's like the perfect storm."

Sam kneaded his forehead and took a deep breath, determined not to give Dean any satisfaction. "Can we focus on what's important here?" he muttered across a deep sigh; "like the fact we're stranded on a broken down boat in the middle of the ocean."

"Let me look;" Dean wobbled giddily, rolling his eyes as he barged past Sam to make his way to the crippled engine. He spent a moment peering cautiously over Florence's back end before dropping to his knees for a closer look.

xxxxx

Deep below the glistening turquoise expanse of sea, two blue eyes, as deep and inscrutable as the ocean itself, peered up through the water at the ebbing outline of a face. The face stared down through the depths toward her without seeing her and she allowed herself a small smile as she turned her back on the arguing men and slipped silkenly through the water beneath the weathered, ugly hull.

Swimming a little distance away, she turned and, taking a deep breath, lunged forward, powering through the ocean like a torpedo toward the side of the hull, at the last minute leaping up out of the water and slamming into it with all her might.

She smiled as she dropped silently back into the sea.

xxxxx

"I can't see what's wrong," Dean sighed, leaning further over the boat's edge in an effort to get a better look; "we'd have to get her out of the water."

Sam rubbed the back of his neck, sucking in a harsh breath as he felt the first warm sting of sunburn beneath his hand; "We can get on the radio and call …"

As he spoke, a violent thud shook the side of boat, and Sam barely had time to react to the bone-jarring jolt as he saw Dean disappear with a yelp over Florence's back end into the open expanse of the ocean with an untidy, limb-flailing splash.

"DEAN!"

Sam lunged frantically sternwards to see Dean floundering helplessly just under the surface of the water behind the engine, groping blindly for anything solid to cling to. Leaning over the limpet crusted planks of Florence's hull, he reached down into the water, trying without success to grasp one of his brother's thrashing arms.

He couldn't help the sigh of relief that escaped as Dean's head finally broke the surface with a breathless, spluttering gasp.

"Dean, grab my hand," Sam shouted urgently, concentrating so hard on the matter in hand, he didn't notice the flash of silver that sailed silently through the water far beneath them.

Dean, for once, did as he was told without argument. Stretching up, he groped for Sam's extended arm, and after two abortive attempts, their hands eventually met.

Sam attempted to reassure his brother as his hand tightened around Dean's wrist, "S'okay dude, I gotcha," he muttered mindlessly; "gonna pull you up now."

"S-sammy," Dean spluttered wetly, his voice trailing off into a series of gasping coughs through the rain of seawater trickling over his face; "what in hell was that? I friggin' fell in."

"Yeah, thanks dude, I'd never have guessed;" snorted Sam, unsure of how to respond in the face of such crashing obviousness; "tell me all about it when we get you out, huh?"

Gripping Dean's arm with both hands he began to pull, letting out a groan at the strain.

Dean scrabbled at the edge of the boat, trying to gain some purchase with his free hand as Sam pulled him up, when his upwards movement abruptly stopped with a painful jerk.

Sam tugged hard at the sudden resistance, cringing as he felt Dean's shoulder crackling and popping. Heck; he knew Dean was no cream puff, but he wasn't that freakin' heavy.

"Woah, woah … WOAH!" Dean gasped, clearly in great discomfort; "le…mee go!"

Sam's arms went slack and Dean let out a pained yelp as he plopped awkwardly back into the water.

"What's wrong dude?" Sam asked urgently, eyes bright with concern.

"Back of my jeans are caught on something," panted Dean, blinking back pained tears; "you gave me a freakin' fierce wedgie; holy crap, that hurt… my goddamn balls are in my armpits!"

Sam cringed; that was a mental image he could really do without. "What're you caught on?" he asked in an attempt to change the subject.

Dean gyrated and squirmed in the water as he fiddled and tugged at his trapped jeans ; "I can't friggin' see; damn engine's all snarled up with seaweed, freakin' miles of the stuff," he snapped, panting irritably at his exertions; "bit of … _snort _… engine casing, or a … _grunt_ …loose nail or … _sonofaBITCH … _somethin'_."_

"Well, untangle yourself already," Sam replied; "c'mon, I've gotta get you out of the water."

Dean splashed and cursed as he fiddled blindly through the inpenetrable forest of seaweed with his trapped pants; "I'm. Freakin'. TRYING!"

Suddenly he stilled, going limp.

"Sam," he whispered fearfully; "you don't reckon it was a shark do you?"

Sam's eyes widened. Whatever hit the boat was big and fast and strong.

Like a shark.

Renewed purpose strengthened his resolve; "Right, that's it, I'm getting you out," he stated firmly, reaching down for Dean's arm; "wedgie or not."

Dean made a desperate one-handed effort to undo his pants as Sam began to pull him up; if he couldn't unhook his pants, he could try to take them off. His attempts were thwarted when Sam, brooking no delays, grasped his second arm and lifted him forcibly out of the water, dragging him up over the wooden hull, tugging furiously against the unseen force that held his brother fast until Dean was convinced he was about to be sliced up the middle.

Something was going to have to give, and it was eventually Dean's jeans that gave way, a gaping hole opening across the seat of his jeans, in turn unravelling a large section of his boxers, with a loud rip,

xxxxx

She bit back a joyful giggle as she watched the spectacle unfolding before her. She hadn't even planned that bit; these men could quite easily wipe themselves out without her help. These fools had no business being on her ocean.

She watched as one of her fellow sea creatures drifted delicately past; and another idea formed; oh, this was just too beautiful …

xxxxx

Sam prepared himself for the final effort of hauling Dean's heavy, raggedly bare ass out of the water. What he didn't prepare for, however, was the strangled squeal Dean suddenly let out before he leapt up, without Sam's help, out of the water with the athleticism of a porpoise, and scrambled wildly over the back of the boat, ending up flopped belly-down in a dripping heap on the deck.

Whilst doing everything in his power to avoid looking at his brother's bare ass, Sam couldn't help but notice an angry red welt raised across the width of Dean's left butt-cheek.

"Sammy," he gasped wetly, squirming and bucking uncomfortably in the vast puddle which had accumulated on the deck around him; "I got stung, some freakin' douchewad slimy thing stung me … oh jeez, Sammy; My ass is on fire!"

xxxxx

She smiled fondly as the little jellyfish slipped silently away like a translucent ghost, it's work done; and bobbed softly in the lapping waves. She had wanted to teach them a lesson, but these two idiots were doing half the job for her.

This was as much fun as she'd had for a long time.

xxxxx

Sam stood helplessly over his moaning brother; okay, this was one eventuality he hadn't considered. Really, how far can a man go to offer comfort to his brother's abused ass?

"Sam …"

He crouched down to be near Dean's pain-clenched face, as far from his incandescent ass as was reasonably possible.

"Oh hell Sam;" he moaned pitifully, sucking in a tormented hiss; "fr-freakin' hurts so much ..."

Sam squeezed Dean's shoulder in unspoken support and gave a weak smile.

"Oh well, dude, at least you've forgotten about the seasickness."

xxxxx

tbc


	9. Chapter 9

THE CRUEL SEA

Chapter 9

xxxxx

Crouching in front of the slumped wet figurenof his brother, Sam gently scraped back the soaked bangs which were plastered against Dean's forehead, dripping seawater into his shock-glazed eyes.

"I'm gonna go radio for help," he murmured as calmly as possible, squeezing Dean's shoulder; "you gonna be okay for a moment?"

Dean looked up at his brother's forced smile through watering eyes; "uh … yeah, peachy," he grunted, trying to manoeuvre himself into a position that didn't involve anything resembling sitting, as Sam stood beside him and reluctantly broke the touch.

He turned reluctantly, leaving Dean, and headed urgently toward the swaying foredeck, stumbling down the stairs into the cabin two at a time, clattering his forehead on the low doorframe in his haste.

xxxxx

Beneath the ancient hull, she drifted lazily through the gentle current and pondered.

Had she punished these men enough? She had been having her satisfaction; of that there was no doubt, but she still didn't have her things back. These thieves still had her possessions.

She wanted to get her nice things back; but how?

She wasn't able to get up onto the boat to reclaim her effects, and she had no words to make herself understood to the men; besides, how did she know they wouldn't hurt her? She knew that some of the men of the dry world were quite harmless. But many were not. These men were thieves and surely, therefore, could not be trusted.

She decided that there was only one course of action available to her.

If she couldn't get to her things, she would have to make her things come to her.

xxxxx

Sam sprinted back up the rickety staircase, this time remembering to duck, and returned to find Dean kneeling in the same spreading pool of water.

"There are a couple of fishing boats a little way away," he gasped breathlessly, scraping damp fingers through his hair; "they answered my mayday and one of those is going to come and pick us up."

Dean nodded wearily; "'kay Sammy," he hissed through clenched teeth, his face tightening in pain.

"I used the GPS on the phone to give our location. Hope that works," Sam sighed, crouching down beside Dean again.

Dean looked beat. Completely drenched, he hunched against Sam, boneless from a combination of exhaustion and pain. A crimson glow of sunburn from their hours on the sea was beginning to colour his cheeks.

"How you feelin' dude?" Sam asked cautiously; more for the purpose of getting a coherent response than wanting to know what the answer was.

"Freakin' wet an' freakin sore an' freakin' goddamn hacked off," Dean groaned, miserably arching his shoulders. His exertions in the water, as well as getting him stung, had reopened the grazes across his back, and he was painfully aware of the salt water burning against the raw wounds.

Swallowing back his own growing nausea and discomfort, Sam mentally kicked himself; he hadn't even thought to consider the possibility of getting stung out on the open ocean. Emphasis, of course, being on the words 'on the ocean'. Getting 'in' it hadn't been on his to-do list.

"Sick?"

Dean shook his head, swallowing harshly. "S'not so bad now."

Sam tried not to spoil the moment by mentioning that he felt like he might hurl at any moment, and settled instead for shrugging nonchalently, knowing that he would have to believe Dean; he knew he wouldn't be getting any more clues unless Dean actually yakked there and then over his feet.

A brief and awkward silence passed between the two men.

xxxxx

Sam eventually spoke; "can I take a look?" he asked hesitantly.

"No," Dean shuffled back away from Sam, protectively hiding his rear end against the side of the boat.

"C'mon man," pleaded Sam; "it's not like I actually want to look at your ass, I just wanna see if there's any spines in it or serious swelling or anything else we should be worried about."

Dean's frown deepened as his mind tried to formulate a valid argument against the sheer crashing logic of Sam's statement, and failed parlously. He sighed theatrically as he reluctantly manoeuvred himself back round onto his hands and knees, cringing as the salt breeze ghosted across his exposed buttocks.

Sam sucked in a sharp breath as he looked at the long, narrow welt bisecting Dean's left cheek. "It looks real sore."

"Yeah, thanks Doctor Crippen," grunted Dean; "that's 'cause it freakin' is."

Sam was torn; every fibre of his being was screaming at him to radio for a medical emergency. At this very moment, there could be a deadly toxin coursing around Dean's system. But he also knew that to call the emergency services out here in the middle of the goddamn ocean would require an airlift. Dean would murder Sam in his sleep if he scrambled the air ambulance just for the benefit of Dean and his tiger-striped ass.

He pushed the notion to the back of his mind temporarily as Dean didn't look like a man who was about to keel over in an anaphylactic coma anytime soon, but refused to discount it.

Below them, Florence rocked gently in the ocean's cool embrace as the drama played out upon her deck.

xxxxx

"Um, there is one thing that's supposed to help these sea creature stings," Sam tailed off weakly as Dean shifted with a pained grunt.

"What?"

"Well," Sam hesitated, swallowing deeply as he groped for words that would minimise the chances of Dean punching his lights out; "apparently, they reckon that … if you're stung by one of those sea things and you're in a place where you don't have any, like, antiseptic or anything, then if you, um …" his blush rose, deepening the pink flush of his sunburned cheeks.

Dean's eyes widened in horror; "NO FREAKIN' WAY!"

"They reckon it helps," Sam continued with a shrug.

"I don't friggin' care what 'they' reckon," Dean snarled; "Sam I warn you, if you pee over my ass, I swear I'll jump over the side and drown myself."

"It might help," Sam shrugged.

"It absolutely will not help in any way shape or form," snorted Dean, "if anyone's gonna hafta pee on my ass, I'll do it myself."

Sam folded his arms in resigned frustration; "how exactly are you going to manage that?"

"Shaddup, and help me up," snorted Dean; "no one is peeing on anyone's ass. Get it?"

Sam sighed, "got it."

"Good!" Dean snapped, "I'm gonna go an' lie down in the cabin, until our help arrives."

Sam knew better than to argue further, given that was the first sensible thing Dean had said since his swan dive into the sea. Reaching out, he took Dean's hand, and carefully pulled him to his feet.

xxxxx

Her busily nimble fingers patiently worked the coral pins she had removed from her billowing chestnut hair into the myriad fraying cracks in the weathered, rotting planks that lined the old boat's hull.

Decades of seawater had done it's destructive work on the old boat, and her wooden skin, neglected and unprotected over the years, was gutless and spongey. Under the mermaid's persistant probing, crumbling nails composed only of rust slipped easily from their disintegrating beds in the fibrous wood and it was in just moments that one rotted, deformed plank fell slowly away from the decrepid hull, and drifted down into the chilling darkness beneath to be reclaimed by the ocean.

Florence lurched sideways as the sea surged into the gap like an invading Army.

xxxxx

Dean had just managed to stagger to his feet, as Florence gave a violent lurch, overbalancing the brothers, sending them both sprawling backwards across the nauseously tilting deck.

Sam was quite sure that Dean's pained and highly colourful howl as his ass made heavy contact with the deck was enough to alert every coastguard from Cancun to Baffin Island that the boys were in trouble.

Rolling over onto his belly, Dean groaned; "what the hell was that?"

"Don't know," gasped Sam, leaning heavily on Dean's shoulder as he scrambled to his feet. He stood and froze, suddenly disoriented by the listing deck.

Sam knew he was no sailor, but he didn't have to know squat about boats to know that whatever this was, it wasn't good.

"Something's wrong dude," he blurted; "just gonna go and check it out."

Dean managed a tight-lipped, bug-eyed nod.

Sam staggered woozily over to the grotesquely listing cabin and descended the stairs only to find himself ankle-deep in a frothing well of gushing seawater.

xxxxx

"Dude, don't wanna worry you or nothin'," he yelled as he scrambled back up the stairs, managing to make a desperate grab for the lifejackets as he went.

"What? Dean snapped, staggering back to his feet.

Sam gave a weak smile as he tossed Dean a lifejacket. He tried to arrange his features into an expression that radiated reassurance, but only managed somewhere in the region of shit-scared.

"Uh, well," he croaked; "the boat's sinking!"

xxxxx

tbc


	10. Chapter 10

THE CRUEL SEA

Chapter 10

There comes a point when things can't possibly get any worse.

This is it.

xxxxx

"Sinking?"

Dean shot Sam a look of blind, ice-cold panic as Florence gave another juddering lurch, keeling drunkenly over to her starboard side and sending both brothers skating across the listing deck into the rails.

"Sh-she can't sink!" He gasped.

"She's a boat, Dean," replied Sam bluntly, fear sharpening his words; "she can."

They both clung to the rails, panting in wordless horror as they watched the sea creeping over her submerged bow toward them.

Down and down, she listed; surrendering meekly to the pull of the ocean as her two helpless occupants fought gravity, scrambling as far up to the grotesquely skewed stern as they could.

xxxxx

Finally, it was Sam who broke the silence.

"ABANDON SHIP!"

"Put this on and jump," he barked, thrusting the lifejacket into Dean's chest.

Dean had barely had time to squirm into his lifejacket before Sam's long arm clotheslined him over the rails backwards, and both brothers plunged into the simmering ocean's chilling embrace.

They writhed and tumbled beneath the churning foam, deafened and disorientated by the water roaring and raging around them before their lifejackets pushed them upwards and both their heads broke the surface simultaneously, bobbing like corks on the ocean's restless surface.

Coughing and spluttering, they blinked stinging seawater from their eyes and watched mesmerised as Florence slowly and inelegantly turned turtle, her bulbous, weathered hull pointing briefly at the sky and bobbing gently for a long, peaceful moment before, with a deafening whoosh, and rumble of foam, she slipped helplessly below the water's surface to the inky depths; finally bringing a long and undistinguished life to an appropriately undistinguished end.

The brothers clawed wildly at each other, desperate to cling to something solid as they fought frantically against the pull of the churning ocean, trying to tug them down to their doom along with their sad little boat.

xxxxx

She watched the ungainly dark mass of the boat's hull as it plunged past her, disgorging it's contents out into the surrounding waters.

Picking through a drifting detritus of clothes, books, bottles and other assorted effects, she wrinkled her nose in disgust at the coarse material of the clothes which floated and wheeled slowly and dreamily through the water around her.

The sour odour of beer from a freshly drained bottle assaulted her nose and made her choke.

These men of the dry world really were vile creatures.

Casting aside her revulsion, she picked her way through everything she could find drifting silently down through the sun-dappled depths and gave a squeal of satisfaction as she found what she was looking for spilling out of a grubby canvas duffel bag.

Her comb, her flute, her circlet and her mirror, exquisitely and skilfully crafted so many years ago by her people, had finally come home.

She joyfully gathered them up and headed away, cutting through the water silently and swiftly like a silver blade.

xxxxx

"Sam, you okay?" Dean spluttered hoarsely.

"Yeah man, 'm okay … you?"

"Peachy," croaked Dean, spitting out a mouthful of seawater as he scraped his soaked hair back off of his forehead; "what in hell happened?"

Sam's shrug was lost beneath the blocky outline of his lifejacket. "The boat sank," he replied weakly.

Dean's glare almost boiled the water around them; "the boat sank?" he snapped; "the freakin' boat … dude, if we get out of this alive, I'm gonna freakin' kill you."

Sam almost mustered a smile; "not much incentive to get rescued then."

Dean lifted his chin, trying to keep his face out of the water; and gave an involuntary shiver, whether it was borne of cold or fear, he didn't know.

"Hope that friggin' fishing boat turns up soon," he grunted.

Sam's stomach plunged into his guts. "Trouble is," he began hesitantly, "when I radioed them, I told them we were on a boat."

Dean nodded vacantly; "yeah?" he prompted.

"Well, they're gonna come looking for a boat," Sam continued, his voice rising in volume and pitch as fear as well as the chilling weight of the water around them tightened his chest; "if they come and see there's no boat anywhere around, they probably won't even see us."

Dean coughed wetly; "oh awesome; so we've got full-on 'Open Water' action going on here then."

"Never saw that movie," Sam replied quietly.

"Kinda wishin' I hadn't now," grunted Dean.

A strained silence fell between the two men.

xxxxx

"I'm sorry", sighed Sam eventually; "this was a crap idea wasn't it."

"Not one of our best," replied Dean, trying for his brother's sake to effect a light hearted, 'laugh-in-the-face-of-danger' smirk.

"Yeah, I'm scared too," murmured Sam solemnly.

Dean's face dropped into a scowl; okay, that went well!

They gripped each other by the arms and clung together closely, watching the horizon with wide, salt-reddened eyes, willing a boat to appear on the terrifyingly empty expanse, and bring a flicker of hope to them.

xxxxx

Neither of the Winchesters had any idea how long they had been adrift; two infinitesimally small, helpless specks marooned in the open vastness of the Atlantic ocean. Both were exhausted, thirsty, nauseous, and more scared than they had ever been in their lives.

They became numb to the heavy chill of the ocean lapping around them, the barely perceptible weight of the current pushing them along to heaven knows where. They would be well away, by now, from the spot that Sam had originally advised their would-be rescuers.

Dean scanned the horizon, unblinking, silent. It was all he could do to focus his mind and stop himself from dwelling on the swift, heavy, creature that had slammed aggressively into their boat earlier. He knew, and he was sure Sam knew, there was only one thing that could have done that. He tried not to dwell on the open grazes on his back, no doubt reeking of blood to the right nostrils; the mysterious sting he'd acquired - did those sorts of things smell of blood or poison or what?

Either way, he had long since added 'Jaws' to the list of movies he really wished he'd never watched.

xxxxx

Sam looked up wearily, his wet hair spraying a shower of droplets into Dean's face, and froze.

A boat.

On the horizon, a distant hulk, silhouetted against the late afternoon sun. It was a fishing vessel, grey and industrial, boxy and ugly.

And it was the most beautiful sight they had ever seen.

Gathering up their remaining energy, they both waved furiously.

"HEY!"

"OVER HERE!"

They both shouted, screaming for all they were worth, sucking damp, salt-laden air into their burning throats as they fought to fill their lungs enough to make their voices heard.

"HELP US PLEASE; OVER HERE!" Dean yelled, cringing as his abused voice tore his throat, he felt as if his voice box would burst under the strain; "GODDAMIT, WE'RE OVER HERE …"

Beside him, Sam yelled no less impressively, his long arms waving furiously as he tried frantically to make himself as visible as possible.

The boat lingered for some time, looking for all the world as if it was searching, scanning; then it began a slow turn.

"NO ... NO, NO," Dean roared, "DON'T GO, WE'RE HERE … YOU FRIGGIN' BLIND SONSOFBITCHES."

His words trailed off into a despairing, broken wheeze.

The boat slipped slowly back over the horizon, taking with it the brothers' last slim hope of rescue.

xxxxx

tbc


	11. Chapter 11

THE CRUEL SEA

Chapter 11

The ocean has a few more surprises for the boys.

xxxxx

She floated languidly in the gently rocking waves, studying her reflection in her delicate, pearl-handled mirror.

Having combed her beautiful chestnut hair, she placed her dainty circlet around it, but today the diamond-bright sunlight glinting off those polished shells gave her no pleasure.

The image of those two terrified men scrambling frantically up to the back of their crippled boat burned in her mind. Now they were adrift, bereft in an alien world; the great empty expanse of the ocean. Her ocean.

She couldn't bring herself to think how scared she would be if she was stranded and helpless in the dry world.

They were bad men for taking her nice things, very bad, but did they deserve to die? And even if they did, was it her decision to make?

She knew her ocean was an unforgiving place; hungry and wild, uncontrollable. Even her people, who considered themselves kings over all in the ocean, knew to bow to it's power.

What if the men were already dead?

If they were, didn't that make her worse than them?

She sighed.

Looking back into her mirror, she saw not her own pretty face; her soft, ivory pale skin with eyes as deep and blue as her home, she saw the hard, twisted features of a bad, wicked person.

And it was at that point she made a decision.

She would help them.

She didn't want to make herself known to them; a scared man fighting for his life was even more dangerous than a calm one. She would ask some special friends to do the work for her.

A smile played on her lips as she lifted her flute to her mouth and began to play a lilting trill.

xxxxx

Within minutes, a small gathering of gulls had congregated around her, some hanging motionless on the warm air above her; others sitting, calmly rocking on the ocean surface. They regarded her with jet black eyes, bright as beads and listened intently while she told them what she wanted them to do.

xxxxx

Dean had been cold before. He'd been wet before. He'd been exposed to danger before.

But this was something like neither brother had ever experienced.

Even though it wasn't a cold day, the bone-cold, aching chill of the ocean had slowly seeped into every atom in their bodies. Dean could feel the weight of his soaked jeans dragging him down, and if he was feeling it, he knew Sam would be feeling it too. Only their lifejackets stood between them and the end of everything.

Both brothers had been sick; a toxic combination of the ocean's constant motion, the cold, and the crushing fear and disorientation of their predicament had taken it's toll, leaving them weakened and giddy. Dean, hardly recovered from his earlier bout of seasickness, was barely functioning.

He licked his parched, salt-burned lips. His thirst was relentless; burning him up and wringing his body out from the inside. He was stranded in water; billions of gallons of the stuff, and not a drop of it drinkable. It was like the punch line to a bad joke.

Still clinging to his brother to ensure they didn't drift apart, Dean scanned the field of his sun-blurred vision, and saw the same depressing sight as he had been seeing ever since that stupid boat had disappeared over the horizon all those hours ago ; flat, featureless blue, for miles and miles and miles.

Forever.

Whoever would have thought that 'nothing' could be so goddamn terrifying. Dean would have taken a crumbling, haunted rat infested cellar any day of the week.

xxxxx

The failure of the trawler to see them had completely broken Sam's spirit. He brooded in fearful despair; now he could see no way out other than the final one. All that was uncertain now was the manner of that conclusion; drowning, dehydration, shark attack … he felt his bile rise again. He knew sharks were attracted to the smell of blood; was the same true for puke? He sure hoped not.

The sun was going down and soon it would be dark. He wondered if either of them would ever see another dawn.

He clung grimly to Dean; remaining silent, unable to look his brother in the eye.

This was all his fault. It all started as a stupid joke, a stunt, because Dean was bored, and yet he couldn't deny the change of scenery had been appealing to him too.

He should have known better than to underestimate the power of the ocean, how could he have been so stupid?

He glanced furtively across to Dean, and could see his brother's hooded eyes staring vacantly into the distance, his sunburned face half obscured by the ungainly blocks of his lifejacket rising higher as Dean's weakening body sank lower.

He wasn't sure if the tears in Dean's eyes were there because of the glare of the low, evening sunlight, or for any other reason.

xxxxx

The Winchesters were jolted out of their melancholy thoughts by the shriek of a gull above them.

It swooped low, circling the two men, banking away from Dean's waving arm as he angrily swatted it away.

Far from leaving them alone, it homed in again, letting out another raucous screech, but this time it was accompanied by another gull.

Then another.

Wheeling around the stranded figures, the gulls swooped and soared, occasionally so low that the Winchesters could feel the draught of their powerful wings against their raw, salt-stung faces.

"Take a hike, you freakin' noisy sonsofbitches," Dean snapped, waving his arms in unco-ordinated circles to try to shoo the annoying birds away, frowning as three more joined them, one dropping down to land on the ocean's surface.

It sat, riding softly across the ocean's restless movement like a boat on a lake, regarding the Winchesters through curious, beetle-black eyes.

"I bet they're like buzzards," Sam gripped Dean's sleeve, looking at him through haunted eyes; "they're waiting for us to die."

Dean scowled and lashed out at the gull that was sitting on the water beside them, "well, they can freakin' wait a bit longer, 'cos I ain't goin' nowhere, an' neither are you;" he snorted, voice cracking hoarsely with the strain. The gull squawked indignantly, fluttering it's wings to regain it's balance as it retreated.

More and more gulls had joined the throng above their heads and the sheer cacophony of them was overwhelming.

Suddenly, there were more birds than either brother could count; a massive wheeling, seething white chaos of hundreds of living bodies bearing down upon the helpless figures below them.

xxxxx

The Trawler, Morningstar was ready to head back to the harbour at the end of a long day's work. Her harvest had been adequate but hardly exceptional; there was plenty of room for more.

As her captain began to chart their course back to Ocean Halt, he was distracted by a shout from one of his crew.

"Hey, boss? Come an' take a look at this."

Nate Harper was a lifelong seaman; the family joke was that he'd been born on the ocean; and that was, without a doubt, the place where he felt most comfortable.

A giant, weathered bear of a man, he'd seen everything the sea had to offer and, so answered his helmsman's call with a weary sigh; he wasn't expecting to see anything that might concern him.

As he walked to the back of the boat, his brow furrowed in thought as he squinted through the low sunlight. He could see the curious sight just on the cusp of the horizon on the starboard bow without the need of the binoculars his helmsman offered him; a huge congregation of seabirds, wheeling and lingering low in the sky over one particular spot in the ocean.

A smile spread over his leathery features. All those seabirds in one place could only mean one thing; a big catch.

"You thinkin' what I'm thinkin' boss?"

Harper smiled; "let's go an' join the party!"

xxxxx

The crew of the Morningstar weren't sure whether to be astounded or disappointed when they found not a massive shoal of herring, not even a small shoal of herring, but two, exhausted, chilled, starving and sunburned, figures, floundering lost and helpless in the cruel emptiness of the ocean.

Disappointed or not, the crew sprung into action admirably, and the rescue was swift and efficient; it was mere moments before the brothers found themselves stripped of their wet clothes and bundled into dry and supposedly clean coveralls (which nevertheless still stunk of fish), wrapped in blankets and slumped with bottles of water amongst piles of catch baskets and stray fish entrails the on the busily cluttered deck of the Morningstar.

Sam managed a weak smile as Dean subsided against him, he didn't know what had happened, how the trawler had found them, where the gulls had come from or how far they were from land.

All he knew was that he had never been so happy to see twenty thousand kilos of dead fish in his life.

xxxxx

tbc


	12. Chapter 12

THE CRUEL SEA

Chapter 12

The boys start to recover from their ordeal and encounter something far more scary than an angry mermaid.

xxxxx

The hospital room was dimly lit and smelled of fish when Dean awoke; he wrinkled his nose in disgust. Jeez, was that unholy smell ever gonna go away?

Blinking wetly through the gloom, he lay and stared blankly at the shadowy ceiling as the haze of drug-induced sleep began to lift. Then he tried to move.

Every single part of him hurt, in fact there were probably parts of him that he didn't even know he had that hurt. His back ached, his lungs ached, his arms ached. His face was fried, his throat burned, his back was sore and his ass was sore. No check that – his ass just itched. Murderously.

He suddenly jackknifed forward as a massive sneeze escaped him.

With the blast still ringing in his ears, he lay back in the bed, and followed up with a deep, wet sniff.

A cold on top of everything else?

Just frickin' awesome.

He sighed when he realised his eruption had disturbed the lump in the bed across the room.

"Sammy?" he hissed, stifling another snuffle; "y'okay?"

There was a symphony of creaking bedsprings and rustling bedsheets as Sam laboriously shuffled onto his side with the agility of a beached whale.

"Define okay," he croaked miserably; "my aches ache. My head's throbbing, my face feels like it's been peeled, my throat's on fire and I am never gonna be able to wash off this stink of fish."

Dean nodded quietly; "welcome to my world," he whispered hoarsely.

The two men fell into a glumly companionable silence.

"What the hell happened out there?" Sam asked absently; "one minute we're stranded in the middle of the ocean waiting to become shark chow; the next thing we're in the middle of a full-on Hitchcock remake, and hitching a ride to safety on our friendly neighbourhood trawler.

Dean knuckled his chest and grunted; "beats me," he sighed; "gift horses, an' all that … let's just be thankful Captain Ahab and his crew found us." He fidgeted, grimacing as he clawed at his butt, sighing at the relief it brought; "I'll take stinkin' of fish over bein' a shark snack any day."

"Betcha won't be so keen to watch 'Shark Week' next year," Sam snorted. He paused, squinting through the darkness; "leave your ass alone Dean," he added sharply.

"Kiss my …" Dean rounded irritably, hesitating; "actually, no, don't."

Another silence fell between them as they both fell into a light doze.

xxxxx

"This wasn't exactly our finest hour, was it?" Sam eventually broke the silence.

"Finest hour? It's been a complete goddamn fiasco;" Dean replied wearily; "we didn't even find a freakin' mermaid," he mumbled into his pillow, flinching as the material grated against his raw face.

"I still reckon you should have let me rename the boat," he grumbled quietly.

"Dean, will you shut up about the freakin' boat's name," Sam sighed; "I told you, it's unlucky to rename a boat."

Dean glared darkly through the gloom; "you're jokin' right?"

Yawning, Sam flopped onto his belly, groaning as the motion hurt aching ribs.

"Get some sleep jerk," the words drifted as sleep began to settle over him despite the creaking and rustling of Dean rearranging himself in the bed across the room.

"An' I had to have another freakin' tetanus shot," Dean muttered sulkily into the pillow, unaware that his words were lost to his sleeping brother.

xxxxx

It was late morning and both Winchesters were sitting expectantly on their respective beds, resplendent in the same obscenely short bile yellow hospital gowns they had been issued with on their arrival, when a young nurse peered around the door.

"Hello guys, your uncle has arrived," she trilled sweetly.

The brothers smiled at her, "thank you," they echoed, their smiles dissolving into sighs of relief as Bobby's familiar and comforting face appeared around the door, his expression hovering somewhere between crushing concern, overwhelming relief and confusion.

"Say Bobby, are you a sight for sore eyes," Dean sighed; "tell me you managed to go to the motel and bring us some clothes?" He self-consciously rearranged his gown, trying to reassure himself that he wasn't going to be showing Bobby any more than a welcoming smile.

Bobby nodded, smiling warmly as he held out a bulging, hastily-packed duffel.

"All in here," he explained, handing the bag over to Dean's grabby hands; "c'mon, git yerselves decent, an' then I can take ya back to the motel."

He turned and idly scanned the fire evacuation procedure posted on the wall as the brothers clumsily dressed behind him.

xxxxx

"Now, what the hell trouble ya been getting into?" Bobby asked wearily, unquestionably relieved that four long, knobbly and extremely hairy bare legs had finally been packed away; "The doc called me last night said you'd named me as your next of kin. He said something about near drowning, sunstroke and hypothermia." He pulled a grubby handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his forehead with it; "heck, you two jokers tryin' to give me a goddamned stroke?"

The brothers both looked sheepishly at the older man.

"Sorry Bobby, we didn't mean to worry you," mumbled Sam; "it's just that our, um, our last hunt didn't go so well …"

Bobby looked up at the two sun-baked faces staring at him

"What the hell were ya huntin? Ya look like you've been on a stakeout under the hole in the friggin' ozone layer."

"Oh nothin' much," replied Sam airily; "just got kinda in a spot of bother out on the ocean."

Bobby's eyes narrowed suspiciously; "Boy, you really think your ol' uncle Bobby's a low-watt bulb? What the hell were ya huntin'?"

Small and timid were words that could rarely, if ever, be applied to either of the Winchester brothers. However, here, under the weight of a worried Bobby's stern glare, they were words that perfectly described, in equal measure, the two squirming figures sitting meekly in the room.

Sam looked shiftily across at Dean, then at his feet.

"Uh, a mermaid," he muttered in the smallest voice he could manage.

"A mermaid?"

Bobby's eyes widened as his head swivelled from one brother to the other; "what, had it gone rogue or something?"

Sam shrugged; "no," he whispered into his chest, unable to meet Bobby's eyes.

"So what the hell were ya huntin'a mermaid for? They're just about the most shy, harmless creatures you could ever find."

He folded his arms, looming over both Winchesters as they sat, their eyes fixed firmly on the floor.

"Well?" He prompted; "what was so bad about this freakin' mermaid that ya had to almost get yerself killed for?"

A heavy silence hung in the room.

xxxxx

Dean Winchester was a brave man. Courage and honour filled his heart to it's very brim. He had faced down the worst, most dangerous situations any man could have nightmares about and done it with his trademark smirk and barely a palpitation; but in the face of an angry Bobby, he was Jello.

He folded like a bad poker hand. "It was Sam's idea" he blurted.

"What?" Sam's head snapped up in wounded outrage; "I only suggested it to stop you whining about being bored and unfulfilled."

Bobby's brow furrowed in confusion; "what in God's name are you two idjits blatherin' about?"

He raised a hand for silence when both brothers spoke up to defend themselves at the same time.

"Sam?" Bobby growled; "I'm askin' you because I know I won't get a sensible answer out of smart mouth here. Now spill."

Sam sighed. He knew there was music to be faced; and this particular tune was called 'Bobby's seriously pissed and is gonna kick your stupid reckless asses into the middle of next week.'

"We were talkin' a few days ago, and Dean mentioned that he was bored with – um - stuff and life and things, and so we talked a bit more and we thought it might be fun …"

"… You," Dean corrected over a long sniff from behind Bobby's back; "you thought it might be fun."

"I didn't hear you arguing too hard," snapped Sam; "you were more concerned about whether she was hot or not."

"Yeah, well I didn't want to hurt your feeli…"

The raised voices withered; scorched into silence by Bobby's silent scowl.

"We thought it might be fun to hunt something we've never hunted before," sighed Sam; "like a mermaid," he added weakly.

Bobby folded his arms sternly. "I'm surprised at you boys; you know the rules, we don't hurt things that don't hurt us."

"Oh, we weren't going to hurt her, just catch her and then …" Sam wilted as he realised how ridiculous his words were about to sound; "… um , throw her back."

The brothers cowered as Bobby's face turned puce, spluttering in barely suppressed anger, his eyes bulged to the point that Sam was genuinely afraid he really might keel over with a heart attack.

"We just thought …" Dean began, snuffling deeply into his elbow.

"No you didn't; you didn't think," snapped Bobby; "you pair of freakin' asses almost get yourself damnwell killed huntin' something you had no business huntin'. He threw up his arms in exasperation; "I've been drivin' all night to get over here to the end of the friggin' earth to come an' get ya both, worried out of my tiny mind and my goddamned blood pressure's off the scale and …"

Bobby stood, hyperventilating for a moment.

"…and … why the hell can I smell FISH?"

xxxxx

tbc


	13. Chapter 13

THE CRUEL SEA

Chapter 13

xxxxx

The weak and wilting Winchesters retired to their Ocean Halt motel room, under Doctors orders to take time out, rest and recover. They needed to recover, partly from their ordeal and partly from the rocket that Bobby had unleashed on them for their folly. The ride in Bobby's truck from the hospital back to their motel had been uncomfortably frigid considering Bobby was simmering like a fumarole ready to blow.

Furious that the brothers had endangered themselves so needlessly, he had decanted them back at the motel, stocked them up with aftersun lotion, bottled water, orange juice, chicken soup, and Tylenol and politely informed the squirming, shamefaced pair that if their brains were dynamite, they wouldn't have enough to blow a hat off.

He went on to explain that due to a long-standing commitment to help a hunter friend deal with a once-a-year haunting up in Rhode Island in two days, he would reluctantly have to leave soon. He followed that up with a non-negotiable invitation to his place the following week where he would see for himself that the brothers had been looking after themselves, and that if they ever pulled a stunt like that again he would, assuming he actually survived another spike in his blood pressure like that, kick their friggin' idjit asses so goddamn hard that he'd need to find a darn good proctologist to get his boots back.

And then he was gone.

xxxxx

The next three days were spent in a bickering, flu-addled haze of snot, coughing, puking and aching limbs. There was also the peeling sunburn - Dean was SO royally pissed that, by his own reckoning, he'd lost at least one hundred and thirteen layers of skin across his nose and cheeks and his friggin' stupid freckles were STILL there - and an oh-so itchy butt (really, if Sam heard another goddamn word about Dean's butt, he was gonna start swingin'). Despite it all, however, the winchesters rested uneasily in their cramped motel room, grouchily but tenderly caring for each other's ills and gradually began to put their ordeal behind them.

The one upside of the whole miserable situation was that the odour of flu-meds, aftersun lotion, sweat and chicken soup had finally neutralised the stink of fish.

xxxxx

On the fourth day they had decided to venture out of their room and fortify themselves with some fresh air and decent food ahead of a long drive as far away from this godforsaken place as they could go. After a short walk, looking for the same tavern where they had originally eaten the heavenly clam chowder all those days ago, they found themselves ambling along the same cobbled dockside where they had first discovered their ill-fated little boat.

An unspoken moment passed between the two men as they stopped, and stood gazing out across the harbour.

The sunlight sparkled across the gently lapping water as their eyes scanned the surroundings. They stood and stared at the banks of gently swaying masts and the drifting clouds overhead, their eyes eventually settling far away on the vacant berth where they had originally found poor, unlovely Florence. They gazed sadly at the small, empty patch of water.

"The sea, it looks so, so harmless when you look at it like this," observed Sam quietly, "surrounded by boats and people and … life," he tailed off.

Dean nodded silently.

xxxxx

It seemed like an age before Dean spoke.

"Sorry Sam," he stated simply.

Sam turned toward him; "what? What for?"

Dean shrugged, his eyes not leaving their little boat's unoccupied mooring. "It wasn't your fault Sam," he stated; "I know you were only trying to humour me and my mid-life crisis!"

Sam grinned, slapping Dean on the shoulder; "so you admit it then, you tragic old fossil."

"Although," Dean added; "I gotta say, you did try very hard."

They set off walking again until they found a remote, isolated corner of the harbour wall and then sat, their legs dangling over the quayside as they looked out over the open ocean in silence.

Further along the harbour wall a chestnut head broke the water and watched the two figures.

A relieved smile played across her delicate features.

xxxxx

"I can't believe we were out there, in all that water and we didn't even get to see the freakin' mermaid," moaned Dean; "I mean, almost dyin' and all that – at least when we've almost bought it before, we've usually got something to show for it;" he grunted; "y'know, like a dead fugly or some grateful chick tryin' to get my clothes off."

Sam shrugged, giving Dean a wry smile; "Bobby did say they were shy," he replied quietly.

"Bobby said a lot of things," replied Dean with a grimace.

"Yeah," Sam grinned; "my ears are still ringing."

They both flinched as a gull suddenly swooped out of nowhere above them, loosing an ear-splitting shriek.

"Freakin' noisy sono … what the hell?"

Dean stared as something dropped into his lap which, from it's timing and trajectory, could only have come from the gull. He was relieved to note it wasn't a large dollop of guano.

He picked it up and stared at the object in his hand.

Sam stared too; "is that what I think it is?"

Dean nodded without taking his eyes off the object; "it's her comb."

He turned the exquisitely carved object over in his hand and squinted at it. There, scratched delicately across the back of it was a single word.

'Sorry'.

xxxxx

The brothers glanced at each other.

"Sorry?" Sam read over and over again; "what the hell … ?"

A brief silence fell between them as they pondered the small, pretty object in Dean's hand.

Suddenly Dean's eyes widened in enlightenment; "hey Sam, you don't suppose …"

Sam shrugged; "suppose what?"

"Well, when you think about it, all our bad luck kinda begun after we walked out of the cave with this and the other mermaid stuff."

Sam considered Dean's words; "well, there was the cave flood," he offered.

"Nah," Dean shook his head; "that was just you being a dork, and not researching the tides."

Huffing irritably, Sam still couldn't find it within himself to argue.

"You don't suppose all that crap that went on was down to the mermaid that owned this being pissed at us because we took her stuff?"

They continued to stare blankly at the little comb. "I mean," Dean continued; "I serviced that boat's engine man, it was in perfect working order; but when I fell in the sea and saw it, it was all wrapped up in seaweed, and I don't just mean a few little strands, it was damnwell tied up in knots with miles of the stuff, done up like a freakin' Christmas present," he frowned as he thought back; "nah, there's no way that would have happened randomly."

Sam's eyes widened as he warmed to the idea; "the heavy thing that hit the boat and tipped you in; we thought it was a shark," he reflected; "a mermaid might be about the same size as a shark." He thought for a moment; "I mean, think about it dude, if someone stole from us, we'd wanna make sure they got what was comin' to them," he hesitated; "and get our stuff back."

The brothers gradually crumpled into infectious and helpless laughter. "Dude," Dean snorted, handing Sam the comb as he wiped his eyes; "I can't believe we got our asses kicked by a freakin' mermaid."

Sam shook his head in amused resignation; "yeah, and the damn thing doesn't even have legs."

They both chuckled quietly between themselves, unable to take their eyes off the little treasure in Sam's hand.

"Wow, kicked by a mermaid and stung by a, um, thing; your ass has really suffered on this hunt," grinned Sam.

"Your ass is gonna suffer when I kick it all the way back to the impala," snorted Dean, punching his sniggering brother in the shoulder.

xxxxx

They settled back into a companionable silence, their eyes drifting out of focus as they watched the hypnotic ebb and flow of the ocean at their feet.

"I suppose we've gotta assume that she saved us too;" Dean murmured thoughtfully; "all those freakin' gulls didn't just decide to appear out of nowhere to come and alert Captain Fishface and his crew to where we were; there's no way that 'just' happened."

Sam was about to respond when his attention was stolen by a faint glimmer of silver beneath the surface of the water a little way ahead of them. They both froze, snapping into awareness as a long fishtail, shimmering like living mercury, arched elegantly out of the water.

His jaw dropped; "dude, was that … ?"

Dean blinked; "I du-dunno," he responded vacantly, as the same silver tail rose up out of the sunlit water. Coiling elegantly, it reflected the sunlight like a mirror.

The brothers watched, transfixed, as a head broke the water, and looked up at them from under a coppery veil of wet hair which curled softly around slender, sculpted cheekbones and bare shoulders.

Midnight blue eyes looked up, lingering upon the two bemused onlookers, out of a painfully pretty, ivory-pale face, and soft rosebud lips delivered a shy smile before, with an effortless leap, she sliced the surface of the ocean like a blade, disappearing below the waves with barely a ripple.

xxxxx

"It is, it's a mermaid." Dean gasped, "we finally found our mermaid."

Sam nodded breathlessly; "we did it; a mermaid, dude, I don't believe it!"

Dean grinned as he slapped Sam on the back, "you found us a freakin' mermaid."

Turning the exquisite little comb over in his hand, Sam still couldn't quite rationalise what they had seen. "A mermaid," he muttered quietly to himself with an absent shake of the head.

"We've just got to see something that most people, even hunters, never get so see and we've even got a little gift from her," Dean beamed; "dude, this thing'll be worth a fortune to the right buyer, and Sammy, do you know what the best thing of all is?"

Sam turned to Dean with a shrug; "we're alive?"

"Well, yeah obviously," Dean rolled his eyes; "but APART from that, I mean."

Thinking for a moment, Sam shook his head in defeat; "no," he sighed.

Dean grinned broadly.

"She was SMOKIN' hot!"

xxxxx

end


End file.
